


crow of eight, grief

by pana (panaceaa)



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Also known as the fic where Akechi can turn into an actual giant crow, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Injury, Chronic Illness, Goro Big Bang 2020, M/M, Magic, Mild Sexual Content, Non-Explicit Sex, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:34:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 32,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29009877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panaceaa/pseuds/pana
Summary: "I’ll put in a good word for you if the king asks, and if you keep your head down, you might get out of here alive," Prince Akechi says matter-of-factly, as if he’s talking about the weather.“Wow, seems like a great place to be,” Akira responds, his tone bland. “Any other good news?”At that, Prince Akechi’s lips tilt into a rueful little smile.“Nothing good ever happens here,” he says.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 19
Kudos: 137
Collections: Goro Big Bang 2020





	1. Part I: The Garden

_You see crow of one, Bad_   
_Crow of two, Mirth_   
_You see crow of three, Wed_   
_Crow of four, Birth_

.................

........

When Akira was a child, he used to dream of a garden.

Within it existed giant expansive displays of flowers filled with life, energy, and sunlight. Beautiful beyond belief in a way that brought him happiness- strong and true. The garden was _his_ , he knew that as much as he knew anything- beyond description or definition.

What lived beyond the garden was a mystery, but Akira was terrified to leave it to discover what existed beyond the towering walls of briar. There was an almost primal fear within him that, the moment he left, the garden would die without him to oversee it. When a flower would so much as begin to wilt, it frightened him innately. And so, over time, he taught himself how to heal- learned how to help the garden strengthen and _grow_.

In the world of dreams, he poured the energy of his very essence back into the earth, healing what was dead and dying, and slowly bleeding life back into the world. The warmth of this unfamiliar magic traveled through his veins, and all at once _became_ familiar, brushing across his skin like the feeling of an old favorite blanket that he’d forgotten he’d had. Deep within his soul was a feeling of overwhelming _rightness_ , as if everything had fallen into place and this was exactly who he was meant to be.

It was a feeling that he couldn’t forget. And so, one day when he awoke from his dreaming, he went out to the land outside of his small home and recreated the garden that he had so often dreamt.

Standing outside his childhood home, he made flowers come to life all around him, pulling at that familiar ball of light from his dreams that now lived within him. And as he finished, he smiled at the small replica he made. Reaching down, he clenched his small hand around a single flower stem and plucked it from the earth to show his parents.

They had, of course, later burned that garden. His mother had taken the flower from his grasp, skin ashen white and horrified, and said, _“All magic is a curse. Promise me you’ll never use it again._ ”

He did promise her that. He wasn’t sure how something that felt so right to him could possibly be evil, but from that moment on he did all that he could to suppress his abilities. His parents, not being magic users themselves, could never have understood the toll that it took. They couldn’t understand the tingle of magic beneath his skin always begging to be freed- to be released out into the world.

Over time, his dreams grew darker. He always found himself back at the same garden, which he knew because the land was always familiar to him. But throughout the years the flowers and plants withered and died, until even the ground itself screamed of corruption. However, Akira was powerless to do anything, even as he felt the magic of the land echo the quiet pleading of his own, both longing for him to use his powers and release himself from the gilded cage that was wrought for him. In the far distance he swore he could hear the desperate beating of bird’s wings, as if even they were trapped and longing for freedom.

It was only a matter of time before he had to break his promise.

The day that he did, he’d only just turned sixteen-years-old and he’d been taking a short walk through the woods near his home. It was there he’d discovered the cat. Or well, cat sith, to be more precise, and a terribly injured one at that. The cat sith had looked up at him, the light in his blue eyes already starting to fade due to the myriad of deep claw marks marring his black fur. For as much as he knew that he should, Akira couldn’t ignore him.

He’d never had to use that amount of power before, and soon it became clear that Akira needed to rest before he could finish healing. It was an exhaustion unlike anything he’d ever felt before, a deep seated emptiness as if his very essence had been drained. He only made it back home through sheer force of will and determination to save the cat sith in his arms, stumbling all the way.

He outright told his parents nothing, but when they saw him with the injured creature cradled in his arms, they had eyed him with a look that said they knew what he was thinking- an unspoken threat of the consequences for breaking the one unspoken rule of the house.

Akira had known even before they found him with the now healed cat curled up on his bed that they’d send him away. Deep down, he supposed it had always been inevitable.

And yet somehow, after they had sent him to another town far far away from them, Akira’s life improved. He and the cat sith, Morgana, had become fast friends after that. The cat was wise as most cat siths were, and he offered information on the world of magic that Akira had never had the chance to know.

Akira’s parents, in one final act of kindness, had managed to track down someone who was also a healer: Sojiro Sakura. And while their relationship had been rocky at the start, Sojiro ended up training him over the course of countless days, teaching him how to use his powers, and also how to hide them. Together, they saved a number of lives, helped countless people, and finally gave Akira the chance to see that maybe his curse could be considered a gift after all.

For the first time in his life, Akira found that he was happy. As if he belonged somewhere and didn’t have to hide who he was anymore.

As if he had a real family.

It wasn’t until several months had passed that Akira even realized his dreams of the garden had come to an end.

***

“I hunger, make me food,” Futaba says as she enters the kitchen from the direction of her room.

Akira looks up from where he’d been cleaning the front counter to grin at the girl he’d started to view as a sister.

“You’re always hungry,” he tells her, raising a brow in her direction.

Futaba sticks her tongue out at him before flopping down on the booth seat.

No one would ever know she had a talent for iron-based magic and machinery by looking at her. She was small and unassuming- with a love of technology and machinery that sat on the borders of obsession. Of course, iron magic in itself was virtually unknown- and the knowledge of such a gift would perhaps put her in more danger than all of them. Her mother had shared the same gift, as Sojiro had told him one day, only they’d lost her to the crown city long ago. Futaba had still been young when they’d received a letter informing them of her suicide several _years_ after she’d been taken.

Of course, that letter had come very shortly after the _great_ King Shido had taken the throne after their old king had _also_ reportedly killed himself. The rumors of course blamed it on the emergence of a monster out of the Haunted Woods, but the news of that was quickly overshadowed by Shido’s immediate outlawing of all magic- resulting in rewards being handed out for every magic user who was reported to the king.

None of those people were ever heard of again, so Akira didn’t exactly have a lot of hope concerning their well-being. He is glad that his parents had at the very least not turned him in for a monetary reward, and had instead handed him off to Sojiro who they’d _also_ been aware about, so he supposes that they weren’t the worst people in the world. He couldn’t say the same for many others though, which is why the cafe in Leblanc was nothing more than a front for the small healer’s clinic they had set up in the back. Because really, how dare they practice the very _evil_ art of _healing_ other people’s suffering.

Akira scoffs to himself and continues wiping at the countertop.

“I’ll make you something a little later, Futaba,” Sojiro says in response to her dramatics before he turns to Akira. “I need to go check on our friend in the back. Can you handle things up here for a while?”

By friend, he of course meant a man who had managed to miss a piece of wood he’d been trying to chop with his axe, hitting his leg with it instead. He’d been close to death when he was brought in by his wife and brother. They’d gone to an ordinary medic first which only resulted in messy stitchwork and an infection. It’d taken a lot of work, but over the course of many hours, Akira and Sojiro had managed to save both his life and his leg. Now, all that was left to do was to make sure he remained stable.

“Yeah, of course,” Akira tells him, and Sojiro clasps a hand on his shoulder briefly before vanishing into the back.

“You don’t think he’ll tell anyone, do you?” Morgana asks, suddenly appearing on the counter beside him. Akira jumps, having had no idea he’d been there, but he’d learned early on that Morgana had a preference for invisibility. ...Also for using said invisibility to steal small things from the townspeople. He knew he should probably try to get him to stop, but Morgana hadn’t been caught yet, so it wasn’t that much of a problem. Probably.

“Who, the guy we helped?” Akira asks him.

“Yeah,” Morgana says, his eyes bright and scrutinizing. “He’s not a magic user. Wasn’t it kind of risky healing him?”

Akira shrugs in response. “What were we supposed to do, let him die? We saved his life, I doubt he’d betray us.”

Morgana gives him a look, and he seems to be about to say something else when his ears perk up at the sound of the door opening. Akira turns to see a woman walking in, tall and elegant with clothes adorned with a crest of dark red and muted golds. In the center is an emblazoned ebony bird, wings tipped with red that merge together with the paint of the background.

Akira’s stomach plummets at the sight of the royal crest and he looks over to see if he can silently warn Futaba, only to notice that she’s already staring at the insignia, face ashen and body tensed to the point of looking frozen. The spot that Morgana had previously occupied is once again empty, as if he’d never been there at all. Akira swallows his panic and turns to greet their guest with a small smile.

It could technically be nothing. Maybe she was traveling and she just stopped by their small town as a rest stop. Or maybe she was here to see someone else.

All possible, but Akira knew better than to be that optimistic.

“Good afternoon,” the woman greets him, not unpleasantly. “My name is Sae Niijima, royal ambassador for the king. Are you the owner of this establishment?”

Akira knows he has a choice here. If this goes as poorly as he’s expecting, then either he or Sojiro are going to have to take the fall, and Sojiro has Futaba to take care of. Akira has no one.

“Yes.”

He hears Futaba’s sharp inhale of breath, but she thankfully knows better than to say anything.

“Oh,” Sae says, her eyes widening in surprise. “You seem so young.”

Akira shrugs. “I’m an adult.”

That at least was the truth. He’s just turned twenty-two not that long ago. It might not have been old enough to have established and owned his own cafe, but if it was in the family, then maybe.

Sae seems to think the same thing as she slowly nods, and though his palms are sweating, Akira feels some sense of relief.

“I’ve come to understand that this cafe also functions as a clinic,” she says, cutting straight to the point. “Is that correct?”

And there it was.

He’d thought about this very thing happening for years. Imagined different ways it would occur. In some, a whole group of knights would barge in and arrest them all. In others, one or two representatives of the kingdom would come in and demand that Sojiro go with them. In these instances Akira always imagined how he’d jump in to defend him, make it so he was the one taken instead.

So, this might not have been exactly what he’d expected, but it wasn’t as if he’d never considered something like this happening. Still, he is surprised by how calm he is. There’s not an ounce of panic he feels as he looks the woman in the eye and asks, “Where did you hear that?”

“I know someone who sought refuge here,” she responds. “She survived injuries she wouldn’t have been able to otherwise, and I have it under good authority that she was telling the truth.”

And so it seems that Morgana’s fears had been valid. Although it apparently had nothing to do with the man currently hidden in their back room, the fact of the matter was that it had been someone they had helped. Akira’s thoughts suddenly go back to a girl they had healed a couple months back who hadn’t been from their village. Makoto, she said her name was. They’d known she’d been from the kingdom’s crown city of Tokyo, she’d said that quite clearly, but she’d also been young and on the cusp of losing consciousness. She’d been barely intelligible, but from what they’d gathered, she had been riding her horse through the woods when something spooked it and ended up throwing her from its back, causing her to fall down into a deep ravine that left her with several broken ribs and no choice but to claw herself out and drag herself to the nearest town she could find.

Which just happened to be their little town of Inaba.

She’d seemed more curious than fearful of their magic. Seemed to understand the risk they were taking and had genuinely thanked them. Akira had assumed that they had nothing to fear from her.

Now he was really starting to think he had assumed wrong.

“We do have some medical training,” Akira tells her in what he knows is one last pathetic attempt at deception.

“I won’t be fooled,” she says quickly, as he figured she would. This woman was clearly no pushover. Sending the best they had just to capture some healer in backwater nowhere, he should be honored. “Wounds as severe as hers could have only been healed by magic,” she accurately concludes.

“She would have died,” he tells her. To his surprise the woman offers him a small nod in agreement.

“I don’t doubt it,” she says. She pauses for a moment then, looks around the small cafe surroundings with something unreadable in her expression before she once again meets his eyes. “So, it was you then?”

No. He’d only helped a little, it was mostly Sojiro.

It was always mostly Sojiro.

“Yes,” tells her.

“I see,” she says, and for just a moment, there’s a flicker of something in her eyes. Regret maybe? Then in the next moment, it’s gone. Not like it would have done him much good anyway. Whether she had a good heart or not, she still worked for the king and had been sent here for some reason. The law was the law. Sae straightens her posture, fixes the collar of her shirt, and finally says, “Then I request that you come with me.”

“And if I refuse?” His voice still comes out steady, a testament to the empty calm he’s been feeling. He knows the panic will come later, but right now he has to be strong for Futaba. Breaking down now will help none of them, and a commotion would only bring Sojiro to the front which would further complicate things. He was just lucky that Sae had never asked to see the back, and he wasn’t about to test that luck.

“I think we both know the answer to that,” she answers him.

Akira nods, because he does. “Do I have time to say goodbye?”

Sae seems to hesitate on that, pausing for a moment to inspect his face as if she’s looking for something, before finally she breathes out a sigh and nods.

“You have ten minutes,” she says, pinning him with a hard look. “I’ll be waiting outside. Run and I _will_ find you.”

He nods in understanding, not doubting that she would.

He watches her as she exits the shop. The room descends into silence until the door closes behind her and suddenly Futaba is at the counter, reaching over to tug at his sleeve.

“Akira, you can’t do this,” she chokes, using her other hand to wipe at her eyes where tears have started to gather. His heart breaks to see her like that, but there’s another part of him that’s just happy that she and Sojiro are going to be okay. He did it, somehow he saved them both.

“It’ll be fine Futaba,” Akira lies. He never was an optimist.

She fiercely shakes her head in response, a sob ripping through the air. It’s not as if she knew any less than he did exactly what his fate was going to be, but some things were easier not to say. As if maybe if the words were never said aloud, then they wouldn’t come true. And then they both could go on pretending that there was a better outcome on the horizon.

“I’ll go with him.”

Akira and Futaba both turn to see Morgana sitting on the counter in exactly the spot he had vanished earlier. His ears are back and Akira would assume that he’d been there to watch the entire interaction, and yet when their eyes meet beyond the clear devastation and fear, there's something steadfast there, something determined.

Something clenches in Akira’s chest as he’s reminded of the very first day he met him.

“Mona-”

“We’re a team, remember?” Morgana says, stopping him. “Where you go, I go.”

Akira suddenly feels a lot like crying, but he manages to hold back the tears and instead offers him an unsteady smile. “Okay,” he agrees, secretly relieved that he won’t have to do this alone.

“Maybe things will be okay,” Futaba offers weakly. “And then you’ll come back and we’ll all laugh about this.”

He looks at her, tear tracks and hunched posture, knowing she has to be thinking back to her mother. Knows that she’s probably expecting to receive a sealed letter sometime after he’s gone. And he knows that neither of them honestly believe that he’s going to walk out of this alive.

“Yeah, maybe,” he tells her anyway. “Do me a favor and thank the boss for me?”

She blinks watery eyes at him in surprise. “You’re not going to go see him?”

Akira allows his gaze to slide back to the door of the shop where he knew Sae was still waiting. “I don’t want him to do anything he might regret,” he admits.

“He’ll be mad.”

He meets her watery gaze and offers her a sad excuse for a smile. “At least he’ll be alive.”

With that, something seems to break in her, and with a sob she practically launches herself over the counter and hugs him. The power behind it knocks him off balance a little, but he steadies them both and wraps his arms around her in turn. “I’ll miss you,” she says into the cotton of his shirt.

“I’ll miss you too,” he says, tightening his arms around her briefly before letting go.

Getting the hint, she releases him and takes a step back. She stands there, wiping her eyes with her shirt sleeve as he takes off his apron and lays it on the countertop he’d only just been cleaning. He looks to Morgana who rises to his feet with a nod of understanding before he once again vanishes from sight.

Then, taking in the atmosphere of Leblanc for what might be the last time, Akira offers one last smile to Futaba that he hopes comes off as comforting, before finally walking out the door.

Sae straightens immediately when she sees him.

“Ready?” she asks and he nods.

In truth, he wasn’t ready in the slightest, but not like that mattered.

***

The carriage ride to the kingdom’s capital is mostly spent in silence.

Akira takes in the sights around him as they travel. The scenery in the distance consists of densely wooded areas and small villages seated in the backdrop, only starting to turn more densely populated as they approach the center of the kingdom.

It doesn’t take long, only an hour or two before they’re crossing through the wall leading straight into the crown city, Tokyo itself. And although the roof of the king’s castle could be seen from anywhere in the kingdom, Akira had never realized just how massive it appears while within the city’s walls. It overshadows everything, high above all the other buildings in a way that’s both awe-inspiring and intimidating. From within the carriage, Akira has to crane his head up to see it, until he notices Sae watching him and he quickly stops. It’s not exactly like he was here as a tourist, the way the townspeople stop to whisper to each other at the carriages passing speaks to that fact. And he has to wonder just how many executions these people have had to witness.

He feels Morgana’s weight on his lap, a comforting presence, although they’re unable to speak to each other for the duration of the trip. Still, something soft and warm brushes against his palm, and he sends a very quick attempt at a smile down at where Morgana is sitting in thanks.

The carriage comes to a stop almost directly in front of the castle. Akira finds it a little strange that they would take the very magic users that they considered _oh so dangerous_ directly into the king’s palace. He’s not exactly well-versed in how these things work though. For all he knows, it could be some sort of odd display of power from the king. Showing that he was stronger than any magic user that decided to step into his home. That sounded a lot like him.

“I don’t think I need to remind you not to try anything stupid,” Sae says as she opens the door of the carriage. Akira shakes his head like the perfect little prisoner, and she steps out of the carriage, seeming to be pacified. Not exactly like he has a chance to run considering the moment he steps out after her, he’s immediately met by guards stepping up on either side of him.

There’s a brush against his leg, confirmation that Morgana is still with him as he and his entourage walk through the grand doorway into the castle.

The first thing he’s greeted with is the overly ornate interior. It’s far grander in scale than anything he’s ever seen before, and yet there’s something distinctly empty and unwelcoming about it all. It makes a shiver trail down the root of his spine, only intensified by the acute awareness that he’s likely marching forward into his own death. The entrance way is covered with tapestries plastered with the king’s ugly face and an obscene amount of gold embroidery that Akira finds hideous. He has a brief thought of setting all of this on fire before his untimely death, and the thought alone brings a grin to his features.

When they cross into the throne room, Akira instantly finds his attention stolen by the beauty of the stained glass lining the walls. All trace of humor escapes him as he gazes in awe at the story shining in multicolored hues, brightened by the bright sunlight streaming through and lighting up the room. The glass shows a single crow, the kingdom’s symbol, flying towards the heavenly light up above, only to fly back down towards earth, larger and stronger than it’d been before.

_A kingdom blessed by the gods_ , it seemed to say, if Akira had to guess its meaning. Looking away, Akira realizes he’d been so distracted by it that he hadn’t even noticed the king himself sitting at his throne at the end of the long red carpet. Even so, Akira’s gaze only lands on his ugly crowned head for a moment before he notices the man standing next to his throne and all the breath promptly leaves Akira’s lungs.

Akira had heard of the Prince of Tokyo, had seen him in the occasional painting, and while it had always been clear he was pretty, none of the rumors or paintings could have ever done him justice.

The way the light comes through the stained glass makes his light brown hair almost appear golden, and accentuates the stark golds and white in his uniform. A circlet rests atop his head, and a red cape flows behind him, the clasp of it on his shoulder adorned with a dangling black feather. _True royalty,_ Akira’s mind supplies. Still, that’s not what halts his breath. Instead, Akira finds himself captured by the intensity of his wine-red eyes, in the way they narrow with a slightly dangerous edge that makes Akira’s pulse flutter in excitement. A few hairs escape his ponytail, framing his face and sweeping across the cold fire in his eyes as they further narrow in response to Akira’s unabashed staring.

Akira is positive that he’s never seen anyone more beautiful.

“Kneel before the king,” one of his guards says, jabbing Akira harshly with the hilt of his sword. Akira winces, tearing his gaze away from the prince, but not before he notices what might be amusement lining his features.

So, that’s how they were going to play then.

Akira knows it’s probably a terrible idea knowing his position, but that thought alone has him looking to the king himself with a shadow of a smirk, bowing in a way that bordered on cocky.

“My king, it is a _pleasure_ ,” he says, tone dripping with sarcasm. He barely contains his grin as King Shido gazes down at him with an obvious sneer and the prince’s gaze sparkles with the first signs of genuine intrigue.

The king however doesn’t grace him with an answer, and instead he turns to address Sae. “This is who you brought me?”

Sae clears her throat, suddenly looking a little unsure while under his intense scrutiny. “He was recommended to me from a very trustworthy source. I can assure you sir, he is the best healer our kingdom has to offer.”

Akira can’t help but preen a little at her praise, even if he doesn’t really know why she seems to be trying to sell his abilities. Why would it matter how good of a healer he was if they were only going to kill him anyway?

And for that matter, why did it sound as if they’d been searching for a powerful _healer_ in particular?

He once again finds his gaze shifting to the prince who he notices has gone nearly as pale as his uniform. There’s something that might be horror in his widened eyes and a sudden harshness to the line of his jaw, but the moment he catches Akira staring, his expression smooths into a blank and empty calm.

The prince turns to the king. “You asked for a healer?” he asks flatly, his voice speaking nothing of the virulent emotions Akira had just seen previously. It’s a little jarring, and Akira has no idea what he just witnessed.

“Yes, Akechi. I requested a healer for your illness. I’m only looking out for what’s best for you and the kingdom.” There’s a certain sliminess to the way he says the words that instantly makes Akira’s skin prickle. Prince Akechi stiffens, but the icy calm remains.

“A healer will not help me,” Prince Akechi tells him, and there’s a weight to the way he says it that Akria can’t quite understand. He’d never heard any news about the prince being ill, and he looked and seemed fine. And yet they had apparently purposely summoned the best healer in the kingdom despite magic having been banned by the king himself. Akira’s really not surprised that the asshole king is also a hypocrite, but there had to be a _reason_ for all of this.

There was something else going on here under the surface, not that he was stupid enough to ask questions here and now. Still, he files it away to think more about later.

Whatever it was that Prince Akechi was implying, King Shido seems entirely unimpressed by. He eyes the prince with annoyance as he tells him, “I offer you the best healer in the kingdom and yet you remain ungrateful.”

At his words, there’s a sudden crack in Prince Akechi’s expression before it’s gone and only the emptiness of his stare remains locked on King Shido. “Thank you, my king.”

“That’s better,” the king says, looking disgustingly smug as he turns back to address Akira and Sae, Prince Akechi suddenly looking like nothing more than an ornate statue beside him. “As I am a just and fair king, I assure you that as long as you do the job you’re supposed to, I will not execute you, _healer_. Now leave my sight, I have other more important things to attend to.”

Akira follows Sae’s lead as she gives a quick bow to the king before she gestures for Akira to follow her out. Before they leave, Akira casts one last look at Prince Akechi who hasn’t moved from his spot beside the throne.

“That includes you, Akechi,” he hears King Shido say, and he catches the stiffness in the prince’s posture as he bows in response.

“Of course, my king,” Prince Akechi says.

And that’s the last Akira sees of him before he and Sae turn the corner and they leave the throne room behind.

***

The next several weeks pass by in a strange sort of pattern.

As it turns out, Akira ends up getting treated more as a guest than a prisoner. He has palace maids who come in to bring him food and tidy up his room- a room which is far grander in scale than anything Akira has had the luxury of living in before. He’s not allowed to leave the castle to explore the town, but that’s really the only rule that he’s given. With the exclusion of the throne room and the king’s personal quarters, neither of which Akira has any interest in exploring anyway, he’s free to roam the palace as he pleases. It’s something that surprises even Morgana, although any worries of his are quickly silenced the minute he learns that Akira can have sushi delivered to his room by request.

It's a strange sort of freedom to have while still fundamentally trapped, but Akira isn’t about to question it. Palace living at the very least beat a public execution or however it was they got rid of all the magic users they discovered.

Still, Akira knows he’s here for a purpose. He’s well aware that his life still probably hinges on the question of whether or not he can heal the prince. And yet, for someone who’s apparently ill, Prince Akechi is remarkably hard to find.

Akira would know, considering he spends a majority of his days walking the palace walls in search of him.

In the beginning, he tries asking around, only to quickly discover that neither the guards or maids ever seem to have an inkling as to where their own prince spends his time. So, eventually, Akira stops asking, instead favoring blind exploration that might somehow lead him to the very person he was trying to find. Throughout his searching, he does meet several interesting characters who he ends up spending some time with to help with his loneliness and longing for home. Some of the maids are kind- some of them keeping him company for hours at a time until duty pulls them away again. Ann, Haru, and Sumire in particular were more than happy to engage in conversation and slip him extra servings of food they wanted him to try.

Then there were the two guards stationed near his room that were surprisingly willing to talk to him. Yusuke and Ryuji had each walked with him at some point or another when he was looking to find a certain area of the castle, and Ryuji in particular always seemed more than happy to show his expertise on the castle’s layout. Yusuke had even drawn him a map, which had been nearly expertly done, which prompted a thorough discussion about his aspiring art career. How he ended up as a guard Akira wasn’t really sure, but it probably had to do with the fact that Yusuke professed needing quite a lot of money for his art supplies.

Still, for as much work as he puts into navigating the castle in search of the prince, the only time he sees him is when Prince Akechi himself shows up at his room one night.

When Akira opens the door to the sound of knocking late in the evening, he’s positive it has to be one of the maids, only to be caught dumbstruck as he finds himself suddenly staring into the intense wine-red eyes of the prince himself. Despite the late hour, Prince Akechi is still dressed in his white uniform emblazoned with red and gold, looking as flawless and ethereal under lamplight as he did under the light of the stained glass. Seeing him standing at his door now, after all the time he spent searching, Akira feels a bit like he’s dreaming.

“My prince,” Akira says, not quite able to mask his clear surprise.

Prince Akechi nods and steps past him, walking through the door into his room without an invitation. Akira blinks, closing the door behind him and thereby closing them both into his room together. The thought sends a quiet thrill through his veins even though he knows the feeling is stupid and baseless. Even if he hardly knew him, he couldn’t deny that the prince was both beautiful and inexplicably fascinating to him.

_You’ve clearly spent too much time trying to find him,_ he reprimands himself.

Prince Akechi’s eyes aren’t quite as harsh as they’d been in the throne room, but they still eye him in a calculating manner, as if he’s trying to deconstruct and analyze every part of him with his gaze alone. It causes Akira to shiver, feeling suddenly vulnerable. Akira doesn’t really understand what Prince Akechi’s doing here, or what he’s supposed to say, so he says nothing and waits for the prince to speak.

“I hear you’ve been looking for me,” Prince Akechi says after a moment. Before Akira can get a word in, his eyes narrow and he adds, “Don’t.”

Akira looks at him in surprise. “Why?”

“It’s unnecessary,” Prince Akechi tells him.

Akira takes in the proud set of his shoulders and the strength of his gaze and he finds he only has more questions about why he was brought here. Not all injuries were visible on the outside, but the prince doesn’t show any signs of a limp, or even the slightest discomfort. And he wasn’t exactly spending time sick in bed.

“Are you even sick?” Akira finds himself blurting to which Prince Akechi’s eyes immediately narrow.

“That’s of no concern to you.”

“Sorry, but it kind of is,” Akira says with a shrug. “You do realize I was dragged out of my town just to come heal you, right?”

Prince Akechi crosses his arms and inspects him as he seems to think of his answer. “I...am aware,” he says after a moment. “Although that decision had nothing to do with me. The king always does what he wants, I have no say in his decisions.”

Akira takes that in for a moment. “But _you’re_ the prince,” he says voicing his confusion despite how stupid it might make him sound.

“And _he’s_ the king,” Prince Akechi says, a certain degree of bitterness in his tone. “That aside, I’ll put in a good word for you if he asks, and if you keep your head down, you might get out of here alive.” He says the words calmly, matter-of-factly, as if he’s talking about the weather.

“Wow, seems like a great place to be,” Akira responds, his tone bland. “Any other good news?”

At that, Prince Akechi’s lips tilt into a rueful little smile. “Nothing good ever happens here,” he says.

With that, he strides past Akira and back out the door.

***

He doesn’t see Prince Akechi for several days after that.

Still, for as much as Akira knows his words were meant to dissuade him, he only finds himself more intrigued by the prince who apparently hated his own castle.

“You know, if he really doesn’t want to be found, you should probably stop looking,” Morgana tells him one day, looking down at the map sprawled across the desk where Akira was marking off all the locations of the castle he had already been. “For all you know, he’s been going out into the city.”

“Ryuji told me that none of the guards ever see him leave out the front gate,” Akira responds, crossing the library off his list. He’d gone there multiple times and he’d never found him there.

“But he can’t just stay in the castle all the time, we would have seen him,” Morgana says. “Is there maybe a secret back gate that we haven’t heard about?”

“No, there’s only the garden area.” Akira points to the little square adorned with painted flowers and labeled ‘garden” on Yusuke’s beautifully drawn map.

“Well, how big is the garden?”

Akira stares at him for a moment, eyes widening as he realizes exactly what his favorite feline companion is saying.

“Morgana,” he says, “why haven’t I looked there yet?”

In truth, Akira already knows the reason. He’d never really pinned the prince as the type of person to spend all his time in the garden area outside, especially after Ann had told him that no one but the few palace gardeners ever ventured out there anymore. And yet, it suddenly dawns on him that a secret area like that would be exactly the type of place that Prince Akechi would hide himself. It was, after all, possibly the last place that anyone would think to check.

He doesn’t mention any of that however, and instead allows Morgana to have this small victory as the cat puffs out his chest proudly. “I don’t know, but aren’t you happy I’m here?”

Akira scratches him behind the ear, smiling as Mona gives a little purr of content. “I am. Thank you Mona.”

***

The garden area turns out to be much larger than he originally thought.

It’s less of a traditional garden, as Yusuke’s tiny painting had implied, and more like a grand maze of different types of flowered bushes and hedges. As he starts walking, Akira’s not really sure where he’s going, and there’s a brief somewhat familiar sense of panic for what lies ahead. As if the atmosphere is reminiscent of a nightmare he once had a lifetime ago. Distant and blurry, but ringing with a familiarity he cannot wholly deny.

Despite this, he keeps walking. He continues wandering through the paths while keeping a lookout for the telltale white, gold, and red royal attire that would likely stand out amidst all the greenery.

As he meanders deeper into the garden, he starts to notice a number of crows. They eye him curiously as he passes, occasionally calling out to each other in loud caws that echo through the briar. Every once in a while, one will hop down from the branch it was perched upon and fly off, sleek black wings spread out gracefully across the backdrop of the bright blue sky. They mostly seem to fly off in the same direction, and Akira finds himself heading that way, noticing that as he does so, the eyes of more and more crows can be spotted between the branches of the maze.

It isn’t long before he steps out from the towering branches of the maze and enters a small clearing much larger than the pathways he’d so far been navigating. Centered in the middle is a group of crows, all alternating between hopping around, pecking at the ground, and calling out to one another. Distant caws can be heard from every direction, some loud and others faint as if coming from a great distance away. It gives Akira the distinct feeling that he’s standing in the central heart of them all.

Akira’s not sure why he’s compelled to do it, but he finds himself walking towards them. Several of the birds turn to look at him as he slowly approaches, but they don’t fly away as would be expected of them. Instead, the closer he gets, the more pairs of eyes turn to look at him, until he can feel hundreds of beady-black eyes watching his every move- not threatening in nature, simply curious. As if they’re all waiting to see what he’ll do.

Truthfully, he’s not really sure what his goal is either. He’s well aware that walking into a giant cluster of cries could end very very bad for him, and then no one would ever find his body all the way out here in the garden. Morgana might, eventually, but there wasn’t much that he could do. And yet, there’s something strangely compelling about the idea of standing in the middle of a hurricane of dangerous birds- to stand in the heart of the group while they all took to the sky around him.

Almost like...when he was little and tried to create that garden out of nothing but his newfound magic. How he felt as if he was surrounded by beauty and could get lost in it.

He is, of course, distracted from his thoughts when the birds’ eyes suddenly shift to something behind him. And, in one graceful movement, they all rise up into the air with a cacophony of caws and the sound of wings beating the air. Akira can’t help but take a step back as several come close enough that he can feel the air rush by in a flurry of wings, as if he’s been caught on the outskirts of a hurricane of birds, too late to breach the eye of the storm. The sky goes dark as they rise overhead, a number of them joining from treetops and from places deeper within the maze. It’s beautiful in a way he can’t quite put into words.

“It seems they’re quite fond of you, why am I not surprised?”

Akira tears his gaze away from the sky and spins around to see none other than Prince Akechi himself, who had at some point come up behind him. It doesn’t escape his notice that the prince, despite having addressed him, has his gaze focused on the mass of birds overhead. There’s something in the way he watches them that strikes Akira as almost being sad, possibly even _longing_. But then the overcast sky clears, bringing light into the garden once more, and when Prince Akechi turns to look at him, whatever it was that had been in his expression is now gone.

“You do have an act for charming our residents, Akira Kurusu,” Prince Akechi continues once he looks back at him. His expression is openly curious, as if considering him, and Akira is strangely reminded of how the crows had watched him. “You’ve become quite popular around the castle.”

Akira isn’t blind to the slight degree of bitterness hidden in the undertone of that last part. He chooses to ignore it for now, and offers a shrug.

“I’m lucky people have been nice to me,” he says, watching as the prince’s eyes narrow a little at that. Before he can say anything, Akira decides to quickly change the subject. “Do they come here a lot?” Akira asks, gesturing to the now empty spot in the grass behind him. Of course, what he really means is _‘Do you come here a lot,’_ but for some reason, the question strikes him as being too personal and he has a feeling he already knows the answer anyway.

Judging by the way Prince Akechi looks at him, it’s clear that he’s not oblivious to what he was doing, but he doesn’t comment on it. Instead, his gaze falls to the spot Akira’s pointing to with a frown.

“Everyday, for a number of years,” he tells him, tone sounding somewhat melancholy. “My mother used to come out here to feed them, and when I was a child, I used to sit and watch her.” He pauses then, his expression speaking of deep rooted pain from a time long past. It fades quickly, and when Prince Akechi looks back at him it’s with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “After she died,” he continues. “I attempted to keep up with the tradition, only to find that they never seemed to like me as they did her. And yet, strangely enough, they still come here.”

The last of his words are said with a degree of detachment, looking at the spot where the crows once were with sightless eyes, as if he’s gone somewhere in his mind that Akira can never hope to follow. Akira hadn’t been expecting such open honesty from him, and it’s surprising even if he’s not quite sure what to say to all that.

“I’m sorry,” he settles on telling him eventually.

Prince Akechi looks up at him, eyes widening in surprise. “Oh, there’s no need to apologize, it’s all in the past now.” He offers a smile that’s overly pleasant, one that reminds Akira of all the paintings of him he’d seen over the years. Even though it’s Akira’s first time seeing it in person, it immediately becomes clear how utterly fake it is, and he finds himself wondering if he can bring back the other side of him. The _real_ side that he’d just caught a glimpse of.

“Of course, my _prince_ ,” Akira says playfully, a small grin tugging at his lips. Prince Akechi shoots him a glare that Akira probably shouldn’t find as endearing as he does.

“If you’re going to mock my title, don’t use it at all,” he says in annoyance. “Just Akechi is fine.”

“Can I call you Goro?” Akira asks, testing his luck.

“You can certainly try,” Akechi responds with a saccharine smile that speaks of an open threat. Akira’s a little tempted to call him Goro anyway just to see what happens, but decides against it in the interest of not accidentally ruining the tiny bit of leeway he’s made with him.

“Alright. So, _Akechi_ ,” Akira says. “What _are_ you doing out here?”

Akechi raises a brow at him. “I could ask you the same question, although I suspect you came out here in yet another desperate attempt at trying to track me down. As you’ve been so fond of doing lately,” he says, shooting Akira a harsh look, to which Akira offers a shrug and sheepish smile in response. Akechi rolls his eyes. “But if you must know, I come out here to play chess.” He makes a vague gesture behind him where sure enough, there’s a small table set up under a small garden archway with a chessboard and two chairs. Akira must have been so distracted by the crows and then Akechi himself that he hadn’t even noticed it.

“You come out here to play chess?”

“Does this surprise you?” Akechi asks, raising a brow.

Akira shrugs. “Not really,” he says honestly, because now that he thought about it, Prince Goro Akechi _would_ be the exact type of person to be very into chess. Akira had played before since there was a chessboard at Leblanc, and he knew from experience that playing alone was a good way to pass time when he had too much going on his head that he needed to distract himself from. Although, looking at Akechi now, he senses an opportunity that he doesn’t dare let escape him. “Would you like a partner?”

Akechi’s eyes widen. “Excuse me?”

A smile tugs at Akira’s lips in response to Akechi’s genuine surprise. “You know, a chess partner?”

Akechi continues looking at him as if he’d just suggested something completely unheard of. “Do you even know how to play?” He asks with open skepticism and Akira shrugs.

“I’ve played enough to know what I’m doing.”

Akechi looks doubtful, but still he pauses for a moment to consider. Finally, he gives a small nod. “Fine then,” he says briskly, turning on his heel and striding over to the chessboard.

Trying his best to contain his smile, Akira follows after him. Akira ends up sitting in the chair opposite of Akechi, placing him in front of the black set of pieces while Akechi predictably claims the white ones.

They don’t say much of anything as they start. Akechi makes it clear that he’s no amateur, and yet Akira isn’t exactly the worst player either. Once Akira proves himself to be a worthy opponent- managing to pull off a series of moves that leaves Akechi momentarily backed into a corner, Akechi seems to sit up a bit straighter as he gazes down at the board with newfound focus. It’s cute in a way that Akira is fully ready to admit to himself. Akechi’s cute, in a prickly sort of way, and the thought makes something flutter deep in his gut.

Of course, Akira’s not at all surprised when Akechi ends up winning. The game itself doesn’t last too long, and the moment he wins, Akira doesn’t miss the flash of smug satisfaction that flashes across Akechi’s features.

“Not bad,” Akechi tells him, relaxing back in his seat a little.

“Did I measure up to your standards?” Akira says in a cocksure way, unable to stop himself from flirting even despite his better judgment.

“Hmm...I suppose so,” Akechi says, resting his hand under his chin and offering a knowing little grin that leaves Akira unable to react for several moments. “I have to admit, having someone to play against was an... _interesting_ experience. You’ve surprised me.”

“Want to play again?” Akira asks hopefully, but Akechi shakes his head.

“I have some research I need to do tonight.”

“Research?”

Akechi nods with a trace amount of amusement. “Yes Akira, may I remind you that I am the prince of this kingdom.”

“I’ve never seen you at the library.”

At that Akechi offers a smug grin. “I don’t use the castle library for my studies. In my experience, people like to snoop around too much.”

“People like me?” Akira asks with a knowing grin.

“Among others, but I won’t get into that now,” Akechi responds somewhat cryptically as he rises to his feet. “Now, would you like to accompany me back, or would you prefer I left you here?”

To Akechi’s obvious amusement, Akira nearly knocks the table over with how quickly he stands up to follow.

***

Things change after that.

It’s not a change that happens quickly, but gradually. A subtle escalation of events that lead up to something greater, something that Akira isn’t quite sure that he understands. Not that he’s complaining.

Prince Goro Akechi, as Akira quickly learns, is a study in nuance. He never says more than he needs to, laying quiet hints of his true feelings in the shades of his words and actions. He’s prickly and cold at times, calculating, distant, and difficult at the best of times, and yet Akira realizes that he wouldn’t have him any other way.

It started with that simple game of chess in the garden. Akira walked him all the way back to his room that day. And then the next. And then the day after that.

It’s after about a week of playing chess with Akechi out in the garden that things once again shift, a miniscule twist on their axis that Akira knows at that very moment will change things irrevocably.

“It’s supposed to rain tomorrow,” Akechi tells him without preamble, moving one of his pieces forward on the board.

“I guess we’ll have to cancel our match then,” Akira says to which Akechi makes a thoughtful noise.

“Or...perhaps we could move things to my room.”

He says it in a completely casual way, and yet Akira isn’t blind to the way he gazes down at the board without meeting his eyes. Meanwhile, Akira knows that he’s staring, utterly unable to tear his eyes away from Akechi. He’s sure he couldn’t have possibly heard him right.

“Alone in your room with a magic user?” Akira finds himself saying.

Akechi scoffs. “And just how did you think they expected you to-” he cuts himself off with a frown. “Nevermind that. I’m more surprised that you’re under the assumption you could hurt me, _healer_.”

“You don’t think I could?”

Akechi raises a brow. “Is that a serious question?”

“Point taken.” Akira taps his fingers on the table, not sure why he’s suddenly so nervous. It’s not like him to be like this, and yet his heart has suddenly started it’s own private symphony and he’s not sure how he’s supposed to quiet it. “Tomorrow morning, I’ll meet you at your room then?”

When he risks a glance at Akechi, he catches a glimpse of something a bit softer than usual in this expression. “Don’t be late,” Akechi tells him, distant and cold once more, and yet the warmth in Akira’s chest doesn’t fade.

And when the next day comes, Akira isn’t late.

Akechi answers the door, and when Akira walks in he’s met with a room that probably could fit two of Leblanc inside of it. It’s massive in stature, and yet completely plain. White walls and gold trim, everything looking new and polished and entirely unlived in. There’s a king sized bed and a balcony off to the side, and Akechi standing here looking incredibly small in the midst of it all.

If Akira had to guess, Akechi really didn’t spend much time here at all. So, then where was it that he was disappearing to when he wasn’t in the garden?

That question is one that haunts him for several days.

In that time, he and Akechi continue to play chess in his room. And every day that Akira shows up, the room looks just as pristine as before, no matter how early he decides to make his appearance.

It’s on the fifth visit that Akira notices Akechi is starting to look a little pale. Akira, having grown used to watching him, notices the way his movements are a little more lethargic, and he seems distracted, which is unlike him.

“Are you okay?” Akira finally asks him after he ends up winning against Akechi for the very first time since they’d started playing.

“I’m fine,” Akechi tells him without hesitation, tone leaving no room for argument and Akira frowns.

“You know if you’re sick, I can try to heal you, it’s not-”

“No,” Akechi says, cutting him off before he can finish. His eyes are harsher than they’d been since that very first day that Akira had seen him in the throne room, as if he’d hit a nerve. Afraid of Akechi retreating back into himself again, Akira decides to drop the issue there and doesn’t push.

Only the next day, Akechi is even worse.

This time, Akira notices the moment that Akechi answers the door. There are bags under his eyes as if he hasn’t slept in weeks, and his skin looks almost gray in pallor. Beyond the visual, Akira’s healing magic senses the difference. A disturbance in his life aura that Akira could only vaguely sense from a distance, or more specifically without skin to skin contact and intense concentration.

There’s a sense of wrongness that permeates the energy around him, something that Akira realizes had always been there, faint and unidentifiable. Only it’s stronger now. Harder to ignore. And whatever it is, it’s clearly malignant in a way that makes his skin prickle with unease.

“Akechi-”

“Don’t,” Akechi growls, giving him a hard look. “Either drop it or leave.”

Akira swallows the sudden lump in his throat, and against his better judgment, he walks into his room and says nothing more of it.

That day marks the second time that he wins against Akechi at chess. Although, the victory is a hollow thing as he keeps checking to make sure Akechi isn’t going to suddenly slump over in his seat...or maybe lash out at him. Akira’s not sure if it’s related to the looming threat of his healing, but between the exhaustion, there are moments when Akechi seems to tense up in pain, jaw tight and fingers digging into the table. And when Akira meets his eyes in those moments, he finds what looks to be barely concealed fury. Pain with a tinge of madness that alights every instinct of danger that Akira has.

Then in the next moment it’s gone, Akechi acting as if nothing ever happened while Akira is left to wonder if he’d imagined it.

And yet all the while, Akira’s fingers continue to ache with the need to heal, his magic calling out with a quiet plea to be released from his veins. Akechi’s clearly in some kind of pain, and Akira wants nothing more than to help him in any way he can. Yet per Akechi’s request he can do nothing, only watch as something unknown eats away at him while Akira sits there, useless.

Still, Akira says goodbye to him that night and can only hope that the next day, Akechi will either miraculously be better or that he’ll finally stop being stubborn and let Akira do what he was sent here to do.

Only when the next day comes, neither of those things happen. Instead, when Akira goes to see him, Akechi never even answers the door.

The panic doesn’t come immediately. At first, he thinks that Akechi is just being difficult, or maybe he was busy with his research- or whatever it was he said he did.

So, he waits a few minutes and he knocks again.

After another moment, he knocks more insistently.

It’s at this point that he realizes that in any ordinary circumstance, Akechi would have ripped the door open with a snarl out of sheer annoyance.

Only he never does.

Akira swallows down his panic and reasons that maybe Akechi just stepped out of his room for a minute. Deep down, he knows that Akechi was not the type to ever skip out on one of their meetings without telling him or even leaving a note for him to find.

But he can’t think about that now.

Instead he tests the door handle, finding it locked as he expected. He chances a glance around the hallway, finding it thankfully empty of guards at the moment, and quickly drops to his knees as he pulls out one of the lockpicks he always kept handy from his coat pocket. The talent isn’t exactly something he’s proud of, but it’s a skill he’d picked up out of boredom and a lack of anything more interesting to do. And he can’t think of a better use for it than this, even if he knows that Akechi might actually kill him if he finds out he broke into his room.

Honestly, that thought doesn’t scare him as much as it probably should.

The lock clicks open after a short moment and Akira hurries inside, opening the door and shutting it behind him.

“Akechi?” Akira asks immediately, looking around the room for any sort of disturbance or worse...a body. He cringes at the thought. But everything looks the same as normal, almost creepy in the way it remains perfectly pristine even as Akira desperately tries to quell his worry about the person who was supposed to be living in it.

When it quickly becomes clear that Akechi isn’t in his room, Akira’s next thought is to check the infirmary. He had _known_ Akechi was sick, had not only seen it but felt it within his very essence. Yet in fear of breaking their fragile bond of friendship, he’d sat there and done nothing.

If anything happened to him, it’d be all his fault.

It’s with that thought that Akira turns on his heel and hurries down the hall.

He doesn’t make it far before he notices Ryuji patrolling down one of the corridors leading to the infirmary. There’s a moment of contemplation where he considers whether or not he should stop and ask if he knew anything, but that decision is made for him when Ryuji calls out to greet him.

“Oh hey Akira,” Ryuji says, throwing him a smile. “Kinda early to be running around the hallways isn’t it?”

“I’m looking for Ake- the prince,” Akira explains in a rush. “Do you know if he’s in the infirmary?”

“Huh? The infirmary? What’s he sick?” Ryuji asks in clear confusion, taking far too long to answer through the blood roaring through his ears. “I just had the night shift around there and I sure didn’t see im’.”

A little more panic rises to the surface at his words before Akira once again swallows it down. He needed to stay calm, he could deal with his emotions later. He just needed to focus on finding Akechi. If he wasn’t in his room and he wasn’t in the infirmary, then there was only one other place Akira could think of Akechi going this early in the morning.

“Thanks, Ryuji,” he says quickly.

With that, he heads off in the direction of the garden.

***

At this early in the morning, the sky is a dusky gray with the first signs of the incoming dawn. In this light the garden doesn’t seem as warm and welcoming as usual, this feeling only punctuated by the strangely quiet atmosphere. Akira knows his way through the maze, knows exactly how to reach the heart, and yet he finds none of the crows that would watch him as he drew closer. Instead he is met with silence, an almost eerie sort of calm. It’s unnerving, to say the least.

It’s a feeling that only grows the moment he steps into the small clearing at the heart. Whereas normally he was welcomed with a cacophony of caws and countless crows, this time he’s met with none of that. Instead it’s completely devoid of life, not a single crow and absent of the prince he’d been hoping to find here.

There’s a part of Akira that wants to go back. That says he got his confirmation and he should run back to the relative safety of the palace because something was very _wrong_ here. Yet, there’s another part of him that only grows more emboldened by the mystery of it all. A part of him that views the path leading beyond the heart of the maze and wonders where it will take him, that wonders if he’ll somehow find answers there.

And it’s that pull of the unknown that ultimately wins out in the end. Even as his pulse flutters with fear and his senses tell him to run the opposite way, he continues on the path in a direction he had never gone before.

As he walks, things look much the same as they did in the parts of the maze he’s explored before. He’s not certain how to navigate his way, and there’s still no crows to be found who might guide him, but he follows his gut instincts and hopes it will be enough.

Time passes in a strange sort of limbo as he walks, so he’s not sure how long he ends up walking for when the garden maze starts to thin. The hedges appear to be less well-maintained, the flowers and trees more wild than pristinely tended to. It’s as if the gardeners of the castle never ventured this far out. And if Akira had to guess, they probably saw no reason to. The only one Akira knew about who went to the gardens was Prince Akechi, and as far as Akira knew, even he never walked all the way to the back of the estate.

So he can’t help but wonder: where did this lead to? And what was the purpose of having the hedge maze continue this far out? Why even have a maze at all?

Those questions repeat themselves through his head along with an undeniable sense of paranoia as a light dusting of fog begins to appear on the ground. It’s familiar in a way he can only vaguely remember from his early childhood, back from his dreams that poured themselves into reality.

Once upon a time, Akira dreamed of a garden.

Once upon a time, Akira lived in a small house not far from what was known as the Haunted Woods.

Both called out to his magic. Both had a faint layer of mist that covered the ground, a layer of haze that only increased in time.

Akira didn’t like to think of the similarities between them. He never thought he’d need to confront them again as not long after he moved to live with Sojiro, his dreams came to an end.

And yet, Akira knows deep within his bones even before the hedge maze comes to a stop exactly where it’s going to end.

The air around him grows colder, and his magic rises up to warm him, prickling against his skin in excitement as if it’s a living breathing thing. When the hedges finally part, he’s not at all surprised to see the tall trees towering in the distance, their bark darkened and gnarled. He’d always been attracted to the sense of _something_ that lurked inside, something unexplainable. But the closest he’d ever gotten to that place was the day he’d found Morgana when he was a kid. And although Morgana swore he had no memory of it, he was always quick to remind Akira that almost every human who wandered into those great expanse of trees never came out- and so no one was alive to tell why.

Akira finds himself wishing for Morgana’s comforting presence now, regretting that he had left him back in the room.

He’s so occupied with gazing out at the line of trees marking the beginning of the forest looming in the distance, that he doesn’t notice the group of men coming up to him on his right until it’s too late to hide.

“Hey, who are you?!” One of the men yells, jarring Akira from his thoughts just in time to see a group of about seven men coming to a stop nearly right in front of him, all of them panting and breathless as if they’d ran all the way here.

Akira blinks in surprise, noting their normal civilian clothes indicating that they’d come from the city that sat below the castle, and really had no reason for being up here. At least none that Akira could think about. So he’s not really sure how to respond, when one of the other men does it for him.

“He’s coming from out of the castle, he must be one of the king’s people!” The man says, eyeing him with a look of pure hatred that promises nothing good. Akira stands his ground however, even when the rest of the men seem to mirror that same expression and a very bad feeling about all of this makes itself known in Akira’s gut.

The first guy who’d spoken, the one in the front of the group who Akira mentally assigns as the leader of this merry band of strange men, takes a step towards him.

“We asked who you are, _stranger_.”

“Akira,” he answers them like an absolute moron. “I’m a prisoner here.”

As he probably should have expected, the men collectively laugh.

“Yeah, and you look awfully well nourished to be a prisoner of our _gracious_ king,” one of the men says with a sneer. “Don’t play us for a group of fools.”

“I’m not,” Akira says blankly, betraying not a single emotion. “What are you all doing here?”

He’s not entirely sure if they’d actually give him an answer, but sure enough his question seems to stir up deep-seated anger within the designated group leader as his expression instantly darkens. ”I figured your _beloved_ king out,” he says as if that should mean something to Akira. “Only someone must’ve told him and now he wants to kill me for it. He’s a coward, sending his little pet after me. Always feeding lies about how that hellbird came from the middle of the Haunted Woods, but I know it has to be coming from here.”

As he finishes his speech, Akira finds himself with even more questions than before he started. He was well aware of what an awful king Shido was, any magic user could tell you that, but ordinary people seemed to love him. And then there was the part about _pets_ , and _hellbirds_ , and Akira was starting to think he might just be talking to a crazy person.

“What are you talking about?” He asks him anyway, grasping for even one ounce of clarity.

“Don’t play stupid, _pet_ ,” the man sneers. “Let us through, and after we take care of the king and his little prince we’ll let you live.”

Akira is well aware of the situation that he’s in. He knows he’s one person against seven men, and the only thing he has are healing powers at his disposal. While it was true that Akira did have a quick eye, and had proved himself graceful and agile during the occasional sparring match, he knew he wouldn’t stand a chance here. He could run of course, make his great escape and never look back.

And yet…

And yet he can’t stop himself from thinking of Akechi. Wherever he was, he had to be back in the castle somewhere and he was ill and weak, and anyone getting to Akechi when he was in a state like that fills him with a type of raw anger that he can’t control. Akechi was a bit of an asshole at times, and yet matched his wit and mind in a way he’d never experienced before. Akechi who secretly preened at compliments, and was stubborn and indignant and hid away from everyone except for Akira-

He couldn’t...Akira _wouldn’t_ ever let them get to him.

Steeling himself for what he’s about to do, he sends a silent apology to Morgana, Futaba and Sojiro and allows the best smirk he has to offer to slide across his features.

“No,” Akira tells them. With a casual shrug of his shoulders he adds, “I guess you’re just going to have to kill me.”

If he was going to go out, might as well do it with style.

The maze is the only real barrier stopping these men from reaching the castle, and Akira knows he’d only be indirectly aiding them by leading them through it, even if there was a chance it would save his life in the end. So, he thinks up another plan in the few seconds it takes for his words to register. All he manages to come up with is annoying them enough that they’ll be so focused on murdering him that they won’t even realize it when he leads them straight into the Haunted Forest.

It’s a pretty stupid plan, all things considered. He’s not even sure if the Haunted Forest _is_ actually that deadly, he’s only heard the legends and warnings. But it’s the best that he can come up with on the spot.

“Why would you ever swear loyalty to a corrupt king?” The leader says after a moment, shaking his head as if he’s honestly disappointed.

_He’s not the one I’m loyal to._

It’s the last thought Akira has before an ice dagger is shot at his face that he only barely manages to dodge. “It’s a pity, but it’s clear you’ve made your choice,” the leader tells him, ice crystals still hovering around his hands. His words are quickly followed by another man morphing flawlessly into a large bear, revealing himself to be a shifter. Akira blinks as one minute there’s a man standing there and the next, there’s a large roaring bear. It’s the first time he’s witnessed someone shift and never would he have expected it to be so immediate and seamless.

An icicle shot at his face returns his focus to the battle at hand, and he silently curses himself for his momentary stupor. In hindsight, it was a stupid lapse of judgment for him to not have considered that magic users could still be hiding out in the crown city. So, it was already bad enough that he had badly misjudged his opponents, hell if he was going to make this any easier for them.

If they wanted to kill him, they were going to have to work for it.

As the bear starts towards him with another furious roar, Akira takes that opportunity to start running. If he was lucky, they’d follow him into the Haunted Forest. If not, well, he was only going to die here anyway. And well, dying in an attempt to save the prince didn’t seem like such a bad way to go.

It’s a thought that comforts him even as gnarled roots, withered with age, rise from the ground and wrap around his ankles, pinning him in place. He attempts to pull himself out but they only grow tighter around him. In all of his training in life-magic, he never learned what he was supposed to do to combat _this_. Not that it would have made much of a difference, he’s out of time anyway.

He looks up to meet his death with his head held high, when instead he’s met with a large shadow darkening the sky above. Akira registers the look of fear on the leaders face only a moment before a giant black bird crashes down to the ground between them with a deafening _caw_.

It’s absolutely massive, at least several feet taller than Akira who has to crane his neck up to see it all the way.

One of the men shouts _“It’s him! Loki-”_ before his words are interrupted by a scream as the huge crow grabs his shoulder in its beak and tosses him aside. The moment it does, the roots around Akira’s ankles loosen enough that he can slip out of them. It was _very_ lucky for him that the bird had decided to launch the very spellcaster keeping him captive. Distantly he knows that he shouldn’t test his luck any more than he already has, and yet, even with his freedom, Akira can’t make himself look away.

He’d heard legends of the monstrous crow that the people had started referring to as Loki. It was an enigma, an unknown monster that was talked about through whispers back in Akira’s small town but no one had actually seen it. All official news and reports had labeled it as a hoax, just an abnormally large species of crow that sometimes made their way out of the Haunted Forest. Yet, looking at the size of the bird in front of him, Akira was starting to really doubt that was the case.

As he stands in awe of the creature before him, it shifts its gaze in his direction, midnight beak streaked with red, and Akira recognizes madness in its eyes. Fear chills his every nerve as he suspects that his savior might also serve as his killer, when the bird gives a pained jerk. When it spins around to face the leader, Akira sees a great spear of ice embedded deep into its wing, blood rising to the surface around the obtrusion, and Akira takes that opportunity to run as fast as he can back towards the castle.

There’s the sounds of shouts, pained grunts and the resounding echo of a monstrous caw as he leaves the battlefield behind him. When he makes it back into the hedge maze he looks back one last time to see the giant bird staring after him. Beyond the madness Akira sees a glimmer of something else in its gaze that speaks of clarity and intelligence beyond what he’d initially thought.

Then the bird’s gaze is ripped away as another spear of ice shoots towards it, and with a thunderous caw it throws itself into the fight once more.


	2. Part II: The Crow

_You see crow of five, Rich_  
_Crow of six, thief_  
_You see crow of seven, Leave_  
_Crow of eight, Grief  
_

***

It’s not until the next day that Akira sees Prince Akechi again.

Akira shows up at his room early in the morning, trying his best to keep himself calm and pretend as if nothing has changed and Akechi hasn’t been completely absent from his life for two days. He’s not sure if he’s going to find him here, has no idea _what_ to expect really. Only this time, Akechi does in fact answer the door, and Akira finds himself blinking at the very person he’d spent the last forty-eight hours worrying about. The person he’d been ready to _die_ for.

It isn’t the first time he’s had that particular thought, and although it was surprising at first, it’s something that he’d since accepted as the truth. Something he couldn’t deny if he tried.

Akira takes in Akechi’s appearance, expecting him to look as ill as he had the last time, only to find that Akechi seems as healthy as the day that he’d first met him. HIs skin has regained its normal pallor, and the shadows under his eyes are far less prominent. Akira’s magic remains calm, only slightly reaching out from the core of his being in the same way it would respond to surface level injuries- it’s a pull that would be completely unnoticeable if Akira wasn’t actively focusing on it. The feeling is reminiscent of how his magic had been the first few days Akira had spent with him in the beginning- as if Akechi really was completely fine.

And yet, Akira’s gaze catches on Akechi’s arm where a thin cloth is tightly wrapped around the outside of his clothes, looking haphazardly tied as if he’d done it in a hurry.

“Akira,” Akechi greets him, his voice betraying nothing. “I’m afraid our game will need to wait a day.”

Not humoring him for a second, Akira steps closer, reaching a hand out to see what he was hiding beneath that piece of cloth. Akechi quickly steps back with a harsh glare.

“You’re hurt,” Akira says as fact, not a question.

“It’s nothing I can’t handle,” Akechi responds indignantly and every part of him, from his narrowed eyes to his tensed posture, is a clear warning.

Unfortunately for Akechi, that never worked on Akira. He’d never once been afraid of him.

“Akechi,” he says, taking a slow step towards him, feeling as if he was approaching an injured wild animal. “I’m a healer. Let me heal you.” He’s well aware that he sounds like he’s begging. Knows that he’s allowing himself to be vulnerable and desperate, but it’s the only way he thinks he might be able to get through to him. The only way he might get Akechi to show vulnerability in return. And sure enough, a silent war rages in Akechi’s eyes, his confliction painted clearly on his face.

Finally, after a small eternity, he slowly nods.

The relief that washes over Akira is palpable, but, as to not scare him away, he only gives Akechi a small encouraging smile and leads him over to the bed. Once they sit down, Akechi continues eyeing him warily as Akira gets to work unwrapping the hastily applied bandage. As he unwinds each strip he begins to see blood, until the shirt below is finally revealed, showing that it had been entirely soaked through. Akira gives Akechi a look, and the prince rolls his eyes.

“It must have reopened,” Akechi mutters irritably. “I would have rebandaged it myself if you hadn’t decided to come bother me.”

“Oh, I’m that much of a bother to you, am I?” Akira asks, his amusement shining through his tone, and Akechi must pick up on it because he shoots him another hard look.

“An absolute pain,” he says like a liar. “I’ve never been annoyed by anyone more.”

Akira smiles to himself, trying his best to bite down a laugh. If Akechi notices, he’s apparently too busy trying to ignore Akira’s existence to comment on it.

“Do you need me to take my shirt off?” Akechi says without preamble, and Akira feels all the breath leave his lungs and his throat go dry at the offer ripped straight from his fantasies. The fact of the matter was: yes he would very much like Akechi to take his shirt off. He thought about it all the time actually. Akira had only ever seen him in his pristine white uniform to the point that he was starting to wonder if Akechi ever took it off at all. But through his very dazed brain, it finally registers that Akechi was only offering so that Akira could heal him- and not for any more _interesting_ reasons. A shame, really.

“Oh uh...yeah,” Akira says, his voice coming out half-choked and immediately feigning a cough to try to hide it.

Akechi stands and starts removing his shirt without the slightest concern about modesty. Which Akira hadn’t really expected from him, but the confidence certainly wasn’t unwelcome. Akechi catches his gaze as his bare chest is finally revealed, his gaze a little too intense and _smug_ , and Akira quickly averts his eyes to the actual problem at hand. The bandage wrapped around his arm is definitely bled through, and he makes quick work of unwrapping it once Akechi sits back down on the bed.

“You know,” Akira says as he starts slowly unwrapping the bandage. “I’m surprised you haven’t asked why I need to do all of this if I’m only going to heal it with magic anyway.”

“Don’t take me for a fool,” Akechi tells him, sounding a bit insulted. “Any person who is stupid enough to allow someone to heal a wound with material still covering it deserves to have it stuck into their flesh.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Akira answers, this time not bothering to hide his smile.

However, when the material parts from Akechi’s skin and the wound reveals itself, his smile vanishes instantly. It’s an ugly and deep wound. Black and charred around the outside as if it had been burnt by fire or possibly even…

Akira’s eyes go wide as he’s reminded of the giant crow the other night. The spear of ice had struck its wing in a spot that would likely correspond almost perfectly to where Akechi’s injury was. Not only that but Akira, finally fully taking in Akechi’s bare chest up close, begins to pick up on numerous scars- all in various stages of healing and fading.

“Is this the only injury you have?” Akira asks thickly.

Akechi stays quiet, contemplating this for slightly too long for comfort. “I believe so,” he says finally, and Akira doesn’t believe him for a second.

This current injury might be the only healed and recent looking one, but there were more he was hiding. From a fight maybe? A fight possibly akin to the one that Akira had only just witnessed last night. The one where, like it or not, that giant crow had saved his life.

Yet to even allow himself to think that the prince himself had magic in his blood would be heresy. To consider the possibility that Prince Akechi somehow had the ability to shapeshift into a crow of that size would be illogical at best. Akira may not be an expert on shifters, but from what he’s read, they can only transform into creatures of normal size and scale. In the same way that Akira’s magic hummed with purpose like a living creature, a shifter’s magic also came from the earth itself and as such, held to its own worldly restrictions. Attempting to transform into other humans, bugs or insects, inanimate objects, or creatures of absurd scale would only be met with their magic refusing them.

The very thought that Akechi could have bent this rule somehow was nonsensical. Akira _knows_ it’s a completely ridiculous prospect. Knows how stupid it sounds even in his own head, but Akira suddenly can’t escape the feeling deep in his gut that he’s _right_. Somehow.

“How did you get this?” Akira attempts asking him, subtly hoping through yet another impossible dream that Akechi might give him an answer that would explain everything. Reaching out a hand, Akira softly skims his fingertips across the injury in question and feels it when Akechi gives a barely noticeable shudder. When he returns his wandering hand back to his own lap, Akira meets Akechi’s eyes again only to be met with a look of confusion passing over his expression a moment before he blinks it away.

“A hunting accident,” he tells him, to which Akira raises a brow.

“Is that where you were? Hunting?”

Akechi stares at him blankly for several seconds, before finally responding with a simple; “Correct.”

Akira doesn’t buy it for a second. Not only did the prince not seem like the type of person to regularly hunt for sport, but his injury didn’t match up with any that would normally be received in hunting accidents. Not unless it happened to involve somehow getting shot with another hunters arrow… which also happened to be on fire. Which was doubtful.

However, he doesn’t bring any of this up. The most pressing question on his mind is much more personal. Much more selfish.

“You didn’t think to tell me?” Akira asks with a frown, not bothering to mask the hurt edge to his tone. He doesn’t meet Akechi’s eyes when he says it, instead busying himself with inspecting the injury. It looks well-tended to at the very least. Akechi had clearly known what he was doing when he was bandaging himself, which...only manages to bring more concern about his circumstances to the surface.

“I had no obligation to tell you anything,” Akechi answers him after a pause, and Akira nods. There’s a dull ache in his chest at the words, but Akira knows Akechi’s right and the hurt that he’s feeling is baseless and stupid.

Satisfied with the look of the physical wound, Akira gently brushes his fingers against the smooth skin closest to the injury and closes his eyes, willing his magic to come forth. It stirs happily within his being, warm and fluttery like a living creature. It travels down his own arms all the way down to his hands where he releases a small amount of it onto Akechi’s skin. Akechi jerks a little, which usually happens when people weren’t expecting the warm tingly sensation that came along with healing magic, but he doesn’t say anything. After a moment, Akira allows his eyes to open and watches the wound slowly start to work itself closed.

Curious, Akira looks up to get a read on Akechi’s reaction only to meet his eyes unexpectedly. Admittedly, Akira’s still a little bitter about the fact that Akechi had left without so much of a word, and it must show on his face because Akechi’s eyes narrow at him in question.

“What?” Akechi asks him and Akira shrugs noncommittally.

“It’s just that I thought we were friends.”

It’s intended as a joke, something lighthearted to distract himself from the silence between them that’s only punctuated by Akechi’s shallow breathing and Akira’s own racing heart. And yet, the words come out _real_ in a way that he hadn’t expected, and it shocks him just as much as it seems to surprise Akechi whose eyes instantly widen.

Their eyes meet for a fraction of an instant, wine-red meeting slated-gray, and in the muted shock it occurs to Akira that Akechi might have never had a friend before. Had never had anyone he could trust.

“You’re a fool,” Akechi mutters, looking away. “I hate you.”

Akira smiles to himself. _He hadn’t denied it._ “Okay, understood, my prince.”

“And don’t pull that shit,” Akechi bites back, regaining some of his previous fire. It catches Akira a little off guard as Akechi is suddenly glaring at him again. His constant mood changes were starting to give him whiplash.

“What?” Akira asks.

“Call me by my name or get out.”

It maybe wasn’t the best idea to prod at an already agitated Prince Akechi, and yet Akira finds he can’t resist himself as a smirk tugs at the corner of his lips. _“Goro?”_ Akira purrs, a small thrill passing through him as he watches Akechi’s eyes widen. A noticeable red tint dusts across his cheeks that Akira’s only able to admire for a brief moment before Akechi turns his head away in an obvious attempt to hide it.

“I suppose it was too much to expect professionalism from you,” Goro shoots back at him, but he doesn’t immediately go for Akira’s throat so he considers the two of them to now be on a first-name basis. True, Akira has never been much for advert professionalism so it was a miracle he hadn’t slipped up so far, and yet that’d somehow gotten him to be sitting on the same bed with a now shirtless and beautiful prince, so clearly it was working out for him.

Still…

For as much progress as he feels like he’s making, he still can’t understand why Goro won’t let him heal whatever illness he’s suffering from. Even now, as his magic warms and heals the skin beneath his palms, it continues to pull anxiously against his restraint. It wants to go deeper, to _heal_ whatever it is that’s been causing Goro so much pain. But Goro won’t allow him this.

“How are we supposed to maintain a professional relationship if you won’t ever let me do my job?” Akira says quietly. The wound is almost completely healed, and it occurs to him that he’s not sure when Goro will let him in close to him like this again.

“Don’t be stupid,” Goro says indignantly. “What do you think I’m allowing you to do now?”

“Yeah, but only for what’s on the surface,” Akira says, pouring a bit more energy into his skin until it looks and feels as if nothing had ever maimed it. “Which I’m finished with, by the way.” He trails his fingers aimlessly across the new healed skin. “Thank you for letting me do that.”

Goro once again shudders at his touch, but he doesn’t say anything. As he finally retracts his hands, Akira’s not sure if he should leave or not, but since Goro hasn’t kicked him out yet, he remains on the bed beside him. From the corner of his eye he watches as Goro inspects the now flawless skin of his arm, a cute frown tilting at his lips as if the absence of his injury personally offends him. As if he was expecting his arm to still be a bloody mess- or he was _hoping_ it would be. Akira would be lying if he wasn’t a little offended, he was _good_ at his job, and Goro should have realized he never did anything half-assed.

“Fine,” Goro snaps without preamble, causing Akira to stare at him in confoundment. “If it’ll please you so greatly then just get it over with. Do whatever you think is necessary to heal me.”

Akira blinks at him, hardly believing what he’s hearing.

“Wait, really?”

Goro huffs and mutters something that Akira can’t hear. But he turns towards Akira anyway, expression strangely vulnerable for a second before he averts his gaze to the side, avoiding his eyes.

A warm fluttery feeling, separate from his magic stirs in Akira’s gut. Without really meaning to, he finds himself smiling fondly, but does his best to even out his expression before Goro notices.

Akira makes sure to be gentle with him as he places his hands on his arms, as if Goro was a wild animal he doesn’t want to accidentally scare away. Goro refuses to meet his eyes, so Akira allows his own to close as he fully concentrates. Goro’s bare skin is warm under his hands, soft and delicate, so much unlike the prickly personality of the prince himself. His breathing is quicker than normal, his heart pounding in tempo with Akira’s own which both excites him and fills him with a certain serenity and peace that he can’t explain. Even though he feels the _wrongness_ that always surrounded Goro more strongly, he still can’t pinpoint its origin. So instead he gives in and releases the restraint he’d been keeping on his magic, finally allowing it to flow freely into Goro. He feels it as it hums across his body, no longer containing itself to one area but instead traveling through him in an attempt to find the heart of the problem.

Goro trembles a bit under his hands and Akira gives his arms a comforting squeeze. It’s not long before Akira discovers what he’s looking for, or at least he thinks he does. It’s a dark abnormality deep within him, pulsing, and draining and feeding, and unlike anything Akira has ever felt. He prods at it with his magic, only for it to latch onto him with its tendrils and he feels-

_**angry-ravenous** _

_**-all-consuming-** _

_**maddening-** _

**Hunger.**

His heart is thudding a stunted tempo when he opens his eyes back up to see the white ceiling overhead. Behind his back is the plush feeling of the bed with no memory of having laid down. No memory of anything, only a dark and terrifying sensation that claws at his insides and makes him feel as if his very essence had just tried to be invaded. When he looks over at Goro in muted alarm, he sees that Goro’s hands are still held out as a testament to the fact that he had shoved him away.

“Are you satisfied now?” Goro says. His expression is hard, but there’s a tremor in his voice that tells a different story. He’d been shaken by what happened, even if he doesn’t want to admit it.

“What _was_ that?”

“Could you not sense it?” Goro asks, head tilted in question and gaze piercing. Whatever tremor had been in his voice is gone, as if it’d never been there at all.

Meanwhile, Akira can’t stop shaking. He’s not sure how well he’s hiding it, but even as he goes to sit up his muscles feel lethargic, more than they should for the meager amount of healing power he had used. But beyond his own experience, he finds himself feeling afraid. _Terrified_. Whatever that was, it was living _inside_ Goro, and he couldn’t-

“I don’t know,” he mutters, only half paying attention to what he’s saying. “But that’s not an _illness_. I can’t…” Akira swallows, trailing off as he finds himself unable to finish.

Goro’s expression softens. “It’s okay, Akira,” he says. “I know.” Standing from the bed, Goro pulls his shirt back on before moving over to the glass door leading out to the balcony. Looking outside with his back facing Akira he says, “To be entirely honest, you being here was nothing more than a publicity stunt,” he says evenly. “Your presence has been noted and the staff has seen you more than enough with me. You seem more than capable of escaping. If you wish to leave, I don’t believe the king will care enough to stop you, _if_ he even notices.”

He was right. Of course he was right.

Akira wasn’t a fool, for as much as he might pretend to be. He’d known from the very beginning to play nice with the staff, and had used his natural charm to befriend the guards. He knew how to pick locks and get out of unsightly situations. He could escape back to his little town, go back home to Futaba and Sojiro. They’d probably have to move locations if they hadn’t already, but that would be okay. He’d live out his days hiding with them in some other small town farther from the Crown City. Maybe find a wife, start a family, live on without ever really knowing what happened to Prince Goro Akechi, until the prince himself was nothing more than a distant dream.

Akira looks at him now, framed against the window by the early morning sunlight. The lines of his posture are tense despite how calm he always tried to act, and yet what hits him the most is how small and _alone_ he looks. The prince of an entire kingdom and possibly the strongest willed person Akira had ever met, suddenly left powerless while a virulent darkness ate away at him from the inside.

In a small dark little place in his mind, Akira slips away his suspicion of what exactly that darkness is doing to him. He doesn’t allow himself to dwell on it, ignoring it as he does so many other things.

In the end, nothing in the world would have the power to change Akira’s decision anyway. He’s already made up his mind.

Rising from the bed, Akira walks over to stand beside him. Goro doesn’t acknowledge his presence, but Akira can tell his posture tenses a little bit. He wishes he could help cure him, wishes he could do _something_ , but instead there’s only one thing he has to give.

“I think I will stay,” Akira softly tells him.

Goro gives a sharp inhale of breath, but he doesn’t immediately lash out as Akira thought he might. Instead he says nothing, avoiding Akira’s eyes while remaining tense and unmovable. Unreadable. Unreachable. In a moment of weakness, Akira gently reaches out to take Goro’s hand within his own. He can’t quite suppress a smile when his hand gets swiftly batted away, Goro shooting him a glare tinged with warning before looking off in the opposite direction once again.

Still, Goro doesn’t tell him to leave.

After a few moments pass, Goro makes a sound of annoyance and abruptly grabs Akira’s wrist, his grip so tight that his fingers dig in painfully. Akira might have taken it as an act of violence if not for the way Goro continues actively avoiding his eyes, cheeks dusted pink under the morning sunlight coming through the window.

Lips tilting into a small but fond smile, Akira lets his magic soothe the pain in his wrist and doesn’t dare pull away.

They stay there like that for a long time.

***

Things don’t really change much after that.

They don’t discuss what happened in Goro’s room that day, and instead they both pretend to be blissfully ignorant to the unspoken truths rattling the room. Their days return to what they once were, the two of them playing chess at the early hours of the morning and sometimes until late at night, and yet the pattern continues in other ways as well. Before even a full week passes since Akira’s attempt to heal him, Goro starts to show the signs of the illness taking its hold once more. His skin graying, and his eyes punctuated with angry dark circles.

And Akira can do nothing. Knows better than to even bring it up again.

On the third day, when Goro is looking especially bad, much in the same way he looked before the day he vanished last time, he gives Akira one single warning.

“I’m going on another hunting trip,” he lies with a hard look, as if daring him to question. “Don’t bother showing up at my room the next few days, I’ll remember to call for you once I’m back.”

Akira fiddles with the chess piece he’s holding in his hand. He can’t deny the spark of worry his words bring rising up to the surface. It’s as if he’s drowning, sinking endlessly while Goro walks away from him on the surface. Out of reach, like always.

“And you _will_ come back, right?” Akira softly questions. “No more hunting accidents?”

Goro scoffs, but when Akira looks up at him there’s a distant look in his eyes. “I haven’t managed to die yet,” he says looking a bit amused at the thought. “But no, I won't allow what happened last time to happen again. I don’t foresee any accidents.” There’s a dark edge to his tone as he finishes, and it worries Akira more than he wants to admit.

“I could go with you,” he finds himself saying far too hopefully.

“While appreciated, I’ll be fine on my own.”

“Goro-”

“Akira, _please_ ,” he says, and Akira finds himself trapped by the pleading lilt to his voice. Prince Goro Akechi _never begged_ for anything. But yet here he was, and he looks so _tired_.

Akira swallows down a sudden lump in his throat. “Okay,” he says quietly.

***

That night, Akira can’t sleep.

He tosses, turns and manages to sleep for a few scarce moments only to be immediately woken up by thoughts of a dark and terrifying future. For all that he tries, he can’t stop seeing the image of a massive crow bleeding out under a barrage of magic, the vision permanently lingering behind his eyelids. He thanks every god up there that he was never gifted the abilities of a seer, because telling himself that it’s nothing more than a nightmare is the only thing that gives him some semblance of peace.

Feeling as if he’s slowly driving himself insane, he finally decides to disrespect Goro’s wishes and visit his room anyway. If he was there, it’d give him the peace of mind he needed. If he wasn’t- well, he’d worry about that later.

Standing from his bed, Akira throws on the same clothes he wore yesterday. He’s about to head out the door when a very certain cat materializes in his way.

“And just where do you think you’re going?” Morgana asks him, eyes luminescent blue in the dark.

Akira shrugs, feeling a lot like a child caught sneaking out in the dead of night. “Just wanted to take a walk.”

“You’re going to go see that Prince Akechi guy, aren’t you?”

Akira fidgets under Morgana’s questioning stare. In truth, he hadn’t told Morgana about his encounter with the giant crow- the crow that he had a fairly large hunch was actually their crown prince. He couldn’t help but feel guilty about his secrecy, after all, he and Morgana had always told each other everything. Thick as thieves, as the saying went. Completely inseparable since the day Akira found him in the woods.

He really hated hiding things from him.

But Goro was...complicated. And truthfully, if Morgana were to find out that Akira suspected that Goro’s shifter form was inherently murderous and deadly, well, he might never let Akira out of his sight again. And he really couldn’t have that. Not now.

So, Akira only gives his best friend another small shrug. “I’m just worried about him,” he says in a gross under-exaggeration. “Once I check on him, I’ll be right back.”

Morgana’s nose scrunches up in distaste. “You sure have been spending a lot of time with that guy.”

Akira finds himself fiddling a bit with his bangs. “He seems lonely,” he says truthfully, hoping that would be enough of an explanation to appease Morgana. The cat tilts his head at him, large blue eyes considering him.

“Are you sure that’s the only reason?”

Akira shrugs again and Morgana quells the intensity of his stare with a roll of his eyes. “Fine,” he obliges. After a pause, he adds, “Just...be careful Akira. There’s something weird going on with this place.”

On that, they could both agree. Between his experiences with Goro, the strange maze in the garden, and the strange circumstances of his arrival- things clearly weren’t exactly as they seemed.

“Don’t worry,” Akira reassures him anyway. “I’ll be fine.”

Morgana gives him a look like he doesn’t quite believe him, but he doesn’t stop him as Akira strides past him and walks out the door.

***

It doesn’t take him long to reach Goro’s room, considering Akira knows the way like the back of his hand and could probably find it while stumbling blindly through the dark.

The guards don’t give him much trouble, most of them familiar enough with him to only spare him a nod in passing. Goro had been right when he’d commented on the fact that most of the palace was very familiar with the fact that he and Goro had been spending a lot of time together.

When he reaches the very familiar door leading into Goro’s room, Akira knocks loud enough for Goro to hear even if he’d been sleeping. And as he’d feared, there’s no answer, not even when he waits a few moments and knocks again.

“Goro?” he questions, hitting the door for a third time with a bit more force. From beyond the door, he startles at a resounding _thud_ coming from somewhere deep within the room. It persists for a few moments, lingering on the edge between a bashing noise and a heavy thudding sound. Akira has no idea what it is, but fear makes his hands shake as he fumbles for his lockpicks. Half in panic, he sets his sight on the lock and hurriedly breaks through the mechanism on the door.

When he pushes his way into the room, he’s half expecting to be greeted by a fight...or something much worse- blood decorating the white interior, Goro laying in the middle of his bed, slumped over and lifeless.

The worst of his worries cease when that’s not at all what he finds. Instead, the room is just as white and pristine as it’s always been. Eerily empty with not a single pillow out of place.. Only this time the quiet air is permeated once again by a muted boom, louder and more prominent now. Akira tries calling Goro’s name again, panic gripping at his heart.

There’s no response.

Doing the only other thing he can do, Akira does his best to follow the direction of the sound. He heads up the stairs at the back of the room, and walks onto the second floor balcony that overlooks the rest of Goro’s room. As he moves forward the crashing grows louder, only it’s soon followed by a loud echoing caw. Akira freezes, his blood rushing through his ears at the sense of familiarity. He’s heard this once before, only he’d been about to die then. Now things weren’t quite that dire. Or, at least he hoped.

Slowly, Akira turns towards the place the sound is coming from, finding a single bookcase sitting innocuously against the wall.

“Goro?” He tries calling again tentatively, his only answer coming in the form of another crash. Only this time he knows it’s coming from the other side of that goddamn bookcase.

Out of pure desperation, Akira’s on the verge of shoving the bookcase aside or knocking it down even. Anything to get past it. But just when he places his hands on the side and is ready to _shove_ , Akira’s fingers knock against a small latch. Flipping it, the bookcase creaks and slowly swings open, revealing a thick metal door.

Without pausing to consider what he’s doing, Akira hurries forward and pushes against the massive weight of the door until he creates a gap big enough for him to slide through. When he emerges on the other side, his limbs tense up in shock as he finds himself facing the very same creature that had been haunting his thoughts and dreams for a little over a week.

The crow really is just as massive as he remembers.

Through the dim light of the room, Akira can see its giant form weakly trying to get up from the ground. Its wings beat uselessly on the stone floor, slamming on the ground in a way that’s painful to witness. Through its desperate movements, the large bird manages to get a tiny bit of air before something yanks it back down and it slams back onto the floor with a resounding thud.

The bird releases a pained caw, defeated and hopeless, and it hurts something deep within Akira’s chest. He finds himself thinking back to the day he first met Goro in the garden, the prince’s face tilted up to the sky in longing. He’s reminded of how Goro stood by the balcony window, looking out at the world beyond the palace with a distinct sense of loneliness. It’s completely and utterly illogical, and yet Akira can’t quell the sensation of familiarity swirling in his gut.

“Goro?” He whispers softly.

The bird’s head jerks up, large black eyes meeting his own. Akira quiets the nervous fluttering of his heart and takes another step forward. “I know it’s you,” he says, wiggling his fingers with a small grin. “I have magic powers too, remember? I _know_ you.”

With a furious caw, the bird somehow gathers enough energy to push itself up from the ground and lunges towards him. Akira doesn’t move. Not even when it comes within a foot of his face, slamming down on the ground with a pained cry a second before it reaches him. Akira kneels down next to it, watching as its giant chest heaves with effort as it glares up at him, looking half-mad with pain. And yet, beyond the madness, there’s _something else_ which gives him reason to pause. _Fear_. It’s a wild and completely _feral_ look, animalistic instinct reigning over intelligence or logic, and there’s nothing to suggest that Goro Akechi is in there at all. And yet...Akira _knows_.

Reaching out a tentative hand, Akira gently touches his feathered neck. “You won’t hurt me.”

Akira watches as a spark of clarity breaks through the madness. The crow blinks at him, and in his eyes he sees something familiar. Something akin to a brief spark of light peering through a murky undercurrent, the water parting just enough that he finds _Goro_ within its depths. Smoothing down the dark and beautiful feathers beneath his palm, Akira gently says, “Let me help you.”

The bird heaves out a great huff of air which sounds suspiciously like a snort, and Akira takes that as a good sign. Allowing his gaze to break away, Akira follows the form of the bird, trying to find any visible injuries that could be preventing him from flying. His eyes land on two bright metal cuffs attached to the stone wall, the chains leading back to the birds oddly positioned legs and digging harshly into the skin.

Immediately rising to his feet, Akira moves towards them, only to be stopped by a low keening sound and a beak snapping up at him. “They’re coming off,” Akira tells him, noting the withering glare Goro’s giving him and choosing to ignore it. When Goro just gives a very annoyed seeming puff of air in response, Akira takes that as his cue to move over to the cuffs.

Once he kneels down beside them, his fears immediately become clear when he realizes that his legs definitely appear to be broken. The fractures are ugly and painful. The need to heal overtakes all logic and Akira just barely stops himself from mindlessly trying to do whatever he can to help alleviate Goro’s pain.

As he attempts to clear his head, a thought suddenly hits him that makes his blood run cold in his veins.

He was standing in a part of _Goro’s room_ , hidden away from the rest of the world. There were no signs of struggle, no evidence to conclude that someone had somehow managed to chain Goro up here forcefully. Meaning, that for all intents and purposes, Goro had done this to himself, very likely knowing the consequences. Because although Goro might have done this to himself for reasons unknown, _the bird_ didn’t know that. Whatever turned Goro into the crow also did something to his mind that drove him to base instincts. Escape. Attack. _Fly_. And Goro had attempted to stop himself from doing that, at whatever the cost.

_“I won't allow what happened last time to happen again.”_

And sure enough, there were no men being flung around under the incoming dawn. Just a very badly injured bird, left victim to his own pain and madness.

“You’re the most stubborn idiot I’ve ever known,” Akira tells him softly, earning only another huff in response.

Realizing that the bird form didn’t seem to retain all of Goro’s mind, in his head Akira gives him the nickname _Crow_ \- since he was not as violent as _Loki_ , but not quite his prince either. The bird when subdued existed somewhere between them, and Akira smiles a bit sadly at seeing Goro brought to such a state without any apparent control of his own.

Taking the lockpick back out from his pocket, Akira gets to work undoing the latch on the first cuff with careful movements. Once it snaps open, he has to jostle the leg a little to get the cuff out from underneath him, and Crow jerks in pain but doesn’t make any sound of complaint. Akira then moves over to get to working on the other cuff, ignoring all the while the red bloody cuts where the cuffs had been digging into both legs. His magic stirs restlessly within him, but he knows that healing anything with the metal still digging into the skin could end very badly.

After sliding the other cuff out from under the leg, Akira immediately releases the restraint on his magic. Hovering his hands over the length of Crow’s legs, he feels for any cracks in the bones and soothes the area around it the best that he can. They were ugly breaks, which meant that he’d need to set them first before attempting to do any real mending.

“Fair warning, this is going to hurt,” Akira tells him, to which Crow gives another great annoyed heave of breath, as if telling Akira to hurry up and get it over with. With a grimace, Akira stands to position himself over both of the oddly angled legs before grasping one in both hands. With as much speed and precision that he can manage, he pulls it so it’s sitting straight. The moment he does so, Crow jerks with an echoing caw, beating his wings against the floor in what’s probably an instinctive reaction to get away.

“ _Goro_!” Akira calls worriedly, placing a hand on his back. In response, the bird tries to twist around, snapping his beak in Akira’s direction. His eyes are once again fogged over with pain and madness, but Akira refuses to back away. “Shh, it’s okay.” he soothes, gently stroking through his feathers. “Stay with me. It’s okay.”

His words seem to have the intended soothing effect, for almost immediately Crow settles back down with another heave of breath, this one a bit more shallow. Satisfied that he has returned to himself, Akira moves over to the other leg and adjusts it the same way he had the other one. Crow jerks again as he positions it, a low pained noise emanating out from him, but the sound is pained rather than vicious. Akira reaches over to brush a few more of his feathers, and more as a way to fill the silence and calm his own heart, he finds himself starting to hum. It has no melody, just a simple flat sound with the occasional inclination, but as Akira releases the full brunt of his magic power into the fractured areas, he senses Crow’s heart starting to ease its own stunted tempo. His breathing slowly evening out as the bones slowly start to mend themselves back together beneath the golden glow of Akira’s hands.

Akira carries on his toneless melody without stopping. After an indeterminable amount of time, the bones are completely mended, and so Akira allows himself to finally move over to the injuries left by the cuffs. Those are much easier to tend to, and while he works Crow’s breathing remains steady and even. It’s not until the wounds are completely healed and Akira finally stands from his place on the floor, joints stiff and aching, that Akira realizes that Crow had at some point fallen asleep.

Without really meaning to, he finds himself watching him for several moments.

Like this, Crow really doesn’t look at all like a scary monster from the stories. The _Loki_ that Akira had heard mentioned in passing had always seemed as if it was a tale meant to scare children. And Akira had even seen Crow fight, had frozen up at the echoing sound of the bird’s cry and at the madness in his gaze, and he had _seen_ that monster.

And yet...underneath all of that, there was still _Goro_. Akira knew this above all else. He felt it within his very being, his magic swirling excitedly as it always did around Goro- always wanting to fix. Always wanting to _heal_ , to help him in any way that he could.

Now, as it were, his magic was settled into a calm little ball, tired and content after all the work he’d just put into healing him. His eyelids feel heavy as if they had weights attached to them, and Akira finds familiarity in the bone-deep exhaustion.

Still, he hesitates. There’s a part of him that doesn’t want to leave Crow alone like this, on the borderline of madness and still sleeping off the strain of his breakdown. Then again, Akira also knows that it’d probably be best if he left now and waited to confront Goro about this when he had a much more understandable vocabulary. Not to mention that he really did need to sleep. They both did.

With that in mind, he finally steps away from Crow’s quietly resting form. Moving towards the door, he’s almost immediately stopped by a small keening rumble, and he turns just in time to see the bird lazily lift his head from the ground and snag Akira’s pant-leg in his beak. Crow tugs him in closer and Akira nearly loses his balance at the strength behind the sudden pull.

“You... _want_ me to stay?” He asks incredulously.

The bird makes another sound deep within his throat that Akira can’t really decipher, but that’s then accompanied by another harsh tug on his pant-leg. This one sends him toppling to the ground and Akira thinks he gets the point.

Before he can get his bearings, he’s hit with the full weight of a large black wing, Crow shifting his large form in a way that has Akira nestled under his wing in an almost protective manner...if that wasn’t the most absolutely insane idea that Akira had ever considered.

Almost immediately after, Crow’s breathing grows heavy once more in a sign of deep slumber. Akira finds himself relaxed by the warmth of his body and the steady rhythm of his breathing.

The sudden comfort coupled with the exhaustion of his healing makes it so that it doesn’t take long before Akira shuts down his reservations and allows himself to be lulled into a dreamless sleep.

***

When Akira wakes, it’s to the sight of sunlight trickling through the high windows. He doesn’t know exactly where he is, or how he even got in this position, but there’s a warm weight thrown across his middle and nestled against his side, and he can’t help but breathe out a sigh of contentment.

The reason for this, as he quickly discovers, is Goro’s body tangled up around his; an arm wrapped firmly around his waist, legs tangled together, and head pressed into the crook of his shoulder. It might just be, Akira thinks, the best thing he’s ever woken up to in his life.

He can’t help but press a bit closer; although the moment he does so, the arm around his middle tenses and he’s suddenly met with the horrified face of one Prince Goro Akechi.

“How did you get in here?” Goro demands, scrambling away from him to Akira’s immense disappointment. With the haze of sleep fading, Akira is hit with the memory of exactly what had happened last night, dully registering the fact that instead of a crow, he was staring at a very human Goro. A very human _naked_ Goro at that.

Akira wouldn’t normally consider himself easily knocked breathless, but with the sun pouring through the windows and highlighting every inch of Goro’s flushed skin, Akira knows that he has never and will never see anything more beautiful. He’s _captivating_. Even as he throws something heavy and painful at Akira’s head. “ _Stop looking_ , you fucking _idiot_!”

Tearing his eyes away from Goro’s _assets_ , Akira notices what he had just been attacked with laying on the floor beside him, finding what looked like an old tome on curses and spells. By the time he looks back up at Goro, to his disappointment he’s managed to both acquire and pull on a pair of pants. “I repeat,” Goro says, crossing his arms across his very lean and muscled chest, “how did you get in here?”

“The uh...door?” Akira answers intelligently, trying his best to get his brain to start functioning correctly again. The fog in his mind clears a bit more and a question rises to the surface. “You don’t remember?” he adds, tilting his head in question.

Goro gives him a withering look. “Of course I don’t remember,” he says as though that should be obvious. He pauses then, something crossing his expression a moment before he turns away. “Forget it,” he says. “You should have never come here.”

Akira is well aware that he’s losing him. He sees it clearly. How Goro is quickly retreating back behind his walls, hiding himself away behind his defensive mask in the only way he knows how. Like it or not, Akira had managed to see a part of Goro he never wanted anyone else to see, and if he had to guess, that _scared_ him.

Akira needed to do something, and fast.

“I already knew,” he blurts without thinking. Goro’s eyes widen, but Akira barrels on. “I saw you near the woods the other night, and I knew it was you.”

In response to his words, Goro’s expression flattens into something much more distrusting, his eyes narrowing as he subtly looms over Akira.

“And how exactly do you _know_ it was me?” He asks, tone flat and cold.

Akira swallows, reaching up to fiddle with his fringe. “I don’t know…” he admits. “I could just sense it.”

He knows it’s not much of an answer, and yet it’s the truth. There was nothing concrete that said in bold black ink that Goro Akechi had been that massive crow, but he had known it was him anyway.

Noticing the way that Goro scoffs with a roll of his eyes, it’s clear he’s not exactly impressed. “A foolish deduction with absolutely no backing to it,” Goro tells him. “You’d make an awful detective.”

And yet Akira isn’t blind to the slight change in the way that Goro regards him. No longer does he look so openly hostile, but instead he seems a bit curious. Reminding Akira a little bit of a hedgehog peeking out of its burrow; trying to decide whether it was safe enough to come out, or if he needed to curl back into his prickly ball. It’s a cute analogy, and Akira would be the first one to admit that Goro was cute by nature, there was no denying that. Still, even though Akira feels like he knows a lot about the many sides of Goro Akechi, he still has the suspicion that he’s always trying his best to hide things from him. He’s not sure why that is.

“Goro,” he says softly, allowing his voice to go low and vulnerable for once in his life. “Why don’t you trust me?”

This seems to give Goro pause. His arms drop from where they’d been crossed over his chest and he visibly deflates a little. All at once, the composed prince fades away and Goro is once again left looking incredibly _tired_.

“I don’t trust anyone,” Goro says tonelessly. “Don’t think that you’re special.”

Still, even though Akira knows that the words are intended to hurt, he finds that they have the opposite effect on him. Because without his princely facade to hide behind, Goro Akechi was a pretty terrible liar.

A smirk pulling at the corners of his lips, Akira leans forward a bit to look at Goro from under his lashes. “But I am special, aren’t I?” He says in his best attempt at being charming. It seems to work by the way that Goro’s face flushes red and he sputters.

“You- you- _I hate you_ ,” he growls, looking positively murderous. Akira continues to grin at him, not at all threatened. Goro could feel free to strangle him at any point, he might not even try to stop him.

“I know you do,” Akira settles on telling him a little too fondly.

Goro mutters something under his breath that Akira doesn’t quite catch before he turns away and stalks over to his desk in the corner of the room. Now that Akira sits and takes a moment to really take in the place, it becomes clear that this was where Goro spent a majority of his time. The room is massive, with huge towering walls and a high ceiling, and littering the floor are discarded items of clothing along with various papers and empty trays of food. It’s abundantly clear that the maids, at the very least, had no idea that this area of the castle even existed. If Akira had to guess, no one did.

Which was probably exactly why this was where Goro decided to hide out.

Akira’s busying himself with trying to read the spines of the old looking spell books on Goro’s desk from his spot on the floor, when without preamble, Goro says, “It’s a curse.” Akira glances up, finding him frowning down at his desk with an unreadable expression. For a moment he stays silent, only speaking again once he turns away from his desk to meet Akira’s eyes. “I would have thought you’d have figured it out already, _healer_.”

The way that he spits his title has Akira biting down on a wince. Goro was... _cursed_. It takes a moment for that to truly sink in, but as he thinks on it a lot of things start making a whole lot more sense. Akira had quietly suspected as much when his magic had reacted the way it did when encountering the dark energy inside of Goro. But in truth, Akira didn’t know enough about curses to assume anything definitively. Curses weren’t exactly a common thing, and you had to be a truly hate-filled person to ever do that to somebody. Which begged the question...

“Who cursed you?”

Akira watches as Goro’s posture stiffens, his expression going cold and dangerous. It’s that very same look that he’d seen on him the day he met him, the one that sent a silent thrill down to the base of his spine.

“My piece-of- _shit_ of a father,” Goro spits out like a curse and Akira can’t quite mask his surprise at the revelation.

“The _king_?”

“Correct. Does it really surprise you that our great and genocidal king is actually a magic user himself? It shouldn’t.” He scowls, a dark humorless look overtaking his features. “Of course, no one _really_ knows that, he makes sure to cut down anyone who gets a little too close to the truth.”

Akira tries his best to make sense of that in his head, feeling as if he was missing something. “But he sent me here, to heal you,” he says, earning a scoff for his efforts.

“As I said before, it was nothing more than a publicity stunt,” Goro tells him, crossing his arms. “The only person who actually has the ability to heal me is the king himself. Although getting him to do so is starting to be a real pain.” The last part he seems to say more to himself, and Akira wonders about the history there. But he decides to save that for another time, too focused on wrapping his head around why King Shido would refuse to cure his only son of a curse he caused. How was he benefitting from this?

“And you know for certain he can heal you?” Akira asks tentatively, not wanting to question something that Goro clearly felt strongly about. In response, Goro frowns down at the floor and takes several moments before he answers.

“...If this is his magic then yes,” he says quietly, sounding the slightest bit unsure. “I see no reason that it wouldn’t work.”

“Goro…”

“He _will_ take this curse away from me,” Goro interrupts him, freezing Akira in place as he meets his gaze with righteous fury burning in his eyes and fists tightly clenched at his sides. “My justice will not allow him to get away with what he’s done.”

Akira takes in the proud set to his shoulders and finds that he believes him. Looking at him here like this, Akira sees someone that he’d gladly swear himself to. He’d follow him anywhere, without question, if only he’d let him.

“I’m assuming you won’t let me help you,” Akira tells him forthright, hoping desperately for the opposite to be the case.

Goro scoffs, and yet his expression softens in a way that makes Akira’s heart skip a beat. “You already are, Akira,” Goro tells him, tone softer than he’d ever heard it. Akira’s chest constricts at his words, but before he can say anything, Goro is abruptly turning away from him in one swift motion. “Now if we’re quite finished here, I’d like to find something to eat before our chess match,” he says, pointedly avoiding Akira’s eyes and heading for the door.

Akira can’t help but smile as he follows, a warm feeling that he knows and yet is not yet ready to voice remains sitting warmly in his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :3  
> Also sorry I've been pretty bad with replying but a big thank you to everyone who commented last chapter ;;w;; I give you all happy incoherent noises and a million thank yous. I appreciate you all so much<3


	3. Part II: The Crow (part 2)

_If you see crows high in the sky,_  
_Call out their number_  
_You'll know the reason why_

***

When Akira was very young, he would have childish fantasies about falling in love.

He’d meet someone, look them in the eye, and immediately know that they were the one-hundred percent perfect one for him. Every time he would imagine them, they would never have a specific appearance, since that never really mattered much to him. Instead he focused more on the type of person they’d be- how’d they meet and how he’d immediately know they were his perfect other half. Sometimes he’d picture it happening in a beautiful garden; he’d see a girl with moss green eyes and hair brown like the bark of an oak tree. She’d smile at him and he’d know he would marry her one day. Other times it’d be a boy practicing archery in the park, or a girl who walked into his life by immediately placing the edge of a sword under his chin, and he’d look down to meet her eyes and find that they were the most mystical shade of blue.

However, as he grew older and the passage of time carved tough lessons into his skin, he eventually came to stop believing in that sort of thing. It’s not like he could hide away his secret from anyone who didn’t use magic, and the chances of finding a nice magic user he was interested in inside of a town as small as the one he’d been living in was second to none.

Then of course he had...left that town. Been escorted right into the walls of a palace and locked gazes with a prince who had eyes the most gorgeous shade of red. His hair was brown, like that of an oak tree, his arms were lean from his skill with a bow, and the open challenge in his gaze was as sharp as any knife placed at the base of his throat.

Prince Goro Akechi was nothing like the love he’d dreamed of finding, and yet he was also somehow every fantasy combined.

Akira had fallen slowly, _unknowingly_ , almost immediately becoming obsessed with the visage of a prince who posed far too many questions than answers. There was never a certain moment where the world stood still, and he knew innately what that growing warmth in his chest was. But instead it was a slow-burning fire consuming him from the inside out, until at one point when they’re sitting there playing chess, Goro smiles to himself after making a particularly good play, and Akira looks at him with the light shining in from the open window and thinks _oh_.

He was in love with him.

And once he realizes it, it’s a thought that never leaves him.

It follows him when Goro takes him down into one of the rooms of the castle to play billiards. Goro is of course amazing at it, and as he pockets yet another ball, he laughs lightly before turning to Akira, and Akira’s heart flutters weakly in his chest.

It also follows him when Goro takes them both out to the garden one day, and after handing Akira a fencing sword, he challenges him to a duel with fire in his eyes. Akira ends up winning that one, the tip of the sword jabbing lightly into Goro’s chest. And the look Goro sends him from over the curve of the sword sends heat down the base of his spine.

And it follows him to every one of their chess matches. A tradition they’ve kept up loyally every day, just as they’re doing now.

Only, once again, Goro is starting to look pained. Akira knows it’s been days since he changed, which he’s come to understand means that he’s going to have to change forms soon, even if he doesn’t want to.

It isn’t the prospect of the change that terrifies Akira, it’s what it’s doing to Goro in the process. He can’t stand to see him in pain, with the darkness deep within him slowly eating away at him from the inside out. Akira would do anything to put a stop to it. But although the nature of the curse is now clear, and Akira knows that he can’t do anything to fix it, that doesn’t mean he can’t try to help in any way that he can. At least, now that he knows there’s a chance Goro might actually let him.

“Give me your hand?” Akira asks him gently, laying his hand palm up on the table between them.

Goro glances down at his offered hand, before meeting his gaze, his brow scrunched in question.

“Why?”

Akira grins at that, wriggling his fingers as he leans over the table until he can see the specks of brown in Goro’s eyes.

“Nervous?”

Goro scoffs, hesitating for another brief moment before he rather tentatively places his fingers on Akira’s offered palm. Akira catches them within his own, and concentrating on the swirl of magic, he allows it to travel up through his hand and over to Goro. In response, Goro sharply inhales and goes to pull away, but he only tightens his grip.

“What are you trying to do?” Goro asks, meeting his gaze with narrowed eyes. “You’re well aware that this won’t have any effect.”

 _Of course I’m aware,_ he thinks to himself.

Akira couldn’t help him, not in the way that he wanted to, more than he’s ever wanted anything. But it was as Sojiro once told him: _magic can’t save everyone and nobody lives forever, and sometimes the only thing left to do is numb the pain._

“It will at least help with the pain,” Akira tells Goro as much, his tone vulnerable and pleading as he adds, “ _Please_.”

Something crumples in Goro’s expression, like a wall crumbling down after the turn of a storm.

“You give too much,” he says quietly. His fingers twitch within Akira’s hold, a moment passing as he stares silently at their hands, somber and contemplative. Finally, he looks back up to meet Akira’s eyes. “You can continue to play like this? It won’t have any effect on you?”

Akira gives him what he intends as a comforting smile, and squeezes his hand.

“I won’t go down easy, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Goro frowns down at the table, looking as if he’s searching for any excuse not to accept his help. He’s stubborn to a fault, and while it's slightly infuriating, Akira can’t help but smile when Goro looks up at him with another question on his tongue.

“Won’t this drain your magic?”

“I’m not actually _mending_ anything,” Akira explains truthfully. “It’s only for the pain. So, sure it’s a little uncomfortable, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.” He gives a small shrug, a small bit of doubt creeping in when Goro doesn’t say anything in response and the seconds tick by in silence. “Is this...okay?” Akira asks, suddenly a little unsure.

Goro meets his eyes again, looking as if he’s searching for something. Whatever it is, he must find, because after a moment he finally seems to relax a little and he nods.

Akira doesn’t hesitate. Calling out to his magic, he gently nudges it forward, tightening his fingers on Goro’s hand as the energy slowly seeps into him more strongly than before. It isn’t so much a current, as it is a slow moving stream. The path of his magic sinking into Goro’s skin with a calming effect, intended to soothe, nothing more.

Moving a chess piece forward with his free hand, Akira offers Goro another comforting smile in response to his probing look. As he’d told him before, while a little uncomfortable, losing this little magic wasn’t about to leave him exhausted anytime soon. After a moment, Goro picks up one of his pieces and makes his next move.

And so, the game continues.

As they play, Goro starts to look more and more relaxed, and as he does, his eyes begin to slip closed. It’s very apparent that he really hasn’t been getting much sleep. Thoughtlessly, Akira finds his thumb rubbing back and forth on Goro’s skin, and he watches as he sinks a little lower into his seat in response.

“I can stay the night if you want,” Akira offers.

Almost immediately, Goro jerks up and snatches away his hand, a clear retort on his tongue. Only instead, all that comes out is a small keening sound and Goro’s hands fly to his head as he curls in on himself.

“ _Goro_?” Akira says in alarm.

“I’m fine,” he gasps. “It’s nothing I haven’t handled before, just...give me a minute to adjust.”

Akira is at his side in an instant. Without a word he gently takes Goro’s hands away from where he’s nearly ripping out his own hair, and he allows his healing magic to flow back into him.

Slowly Goro relaxes again, his breathing evening out as he slumps in his chair, his head bowed as he refuses to meet Akira’s eyes.

“Let me stay the night,” Akira pleads gently, brushing a few sweat-heavy strands of hair back behind Goro’s ear. In response, Goro peeks up at him through his lashes, a mix of shame and something Akira can’t quite define in his eyes.

“I...ah,” Goro looks away again, clearly embarrassed. “You act as if you can keep this up forever.”

“I can try,” Akira says, unable to stop the fond smile from tugging at his lips. Goro was putting up a good fight, but it was clear that he was running out of arguments. “Or at least manage long enough for you to get some sleep.”

“You should go back to your room,” Goro tries in what might be the most unconvincingly small voice possible.

“I’d rather be here,” Akira tells him honestly, earning the sight of pink dusting Goro’s cheeks as he gives him a disbelieving look.

“You are…”

“Charming?” Akira interrupts with a crooked grin.

“ _Impossible_ ,” Goro says, but his expression is fond. With a roll of his eyes, he rises to his feet, pulling Akira up with him by their still connected hands. ”Let’s do this then.”

Goro leads them over to his extravagant pure white bed, which Akira always questioned whether or not it had ever once been slept in. While Akira might have been the one to suggest this, now that he’s suddenly here- hand in hand with Goro and standing in front of the bed they’re about to share, he feels a bit of nerves swirl restlessly in his gut. There’s a degree of intimacy that permeates the air between them, and it both warms and terrifies him.

Without looking at him, with one hand Goro removes his circlet and places it on the bedside table.  
Akira then watches as he undoes the clasp on his cape and places that on the table beside the crown.

Goro then seems to hesitate, his hand tightening on Akira’s as he looks down at their conjoined hands with something that might be fear.

“Do you...require clothes?” Goro asks slowly, still not meeting his eyes. “I think I might have some that will fit.”

Remembering the visceral reaction Goro had only just had in response to letting go of his hand, it really comes to no surprise to Akira that he seems reluctant at the prospect of separating to change clothes.

“I’m okay,” Akira says with a small smile, squeezing his hand. Akechi looks down at his prince attire, and quickly slips off his golden belt, adding that to the growing pile on the table. He then pulls at his clothes a little, loosening them as much as he can manage.

“I should be fine sleeping in this for tonight,” he says when he’s finished, turning his attention towards the bed. He stares at it with resolute focus, as if he’s mentally preparing for battle, and Akira can’t stop his smile.

“Goro,” he says, sitting down on the bed and tugging at his hand for him to follow. “Come here.” When Goro refuses to budge in favor of continuing to eye him dubiously, Akira frowns a bit as another thought occurs. “You do know I won’t try anything, right? I’d never-”

“Of course, you wouldn’t Akira,” Goro interrupts, looking at him as if he was the world’s largest idiot. “You’re the most softhearted fool I know. This is just...new for me,” he adds quietly, almost shyly, which is a far cry from the person who’d ripped his shirt off in front of Akira not too long ago without so much as a second thought.

While considering this, Akira turns so the rest of his body’s on the bed, and scoots back until he’s reclined against the pillows. Goro keeps his hold on his hand the entire time, like an awkward and tense extension who still isn’t quite sure how to move from the floor to the bed.

“You’ve already cuddled me while naked,” Akira attempts goading him as he undoes the button on his hooded cape, “So...really _-ooph-_ ”

His words cut off as he’s smacked in the face with a pillow.

As Akira pushes off the pillow with an amused smile, he looks to see Goro kneeling on the bed next to him, looking venomous and flustered. _He’s adorable,_ Akira thinks, and his heart melts. Akira lightly tugs at his hand again in an attempt to get him to lie down, scooting over a bit to give him more room. A little stiffly, Goro drops part of his weight onto Akira, and Akira freezes, not having expected him to actually take his jibe about naked cuddling to heart. But Akira sure isn’t complaining as Goro adjusts himself, his head resting on his chest, and his knee jabbing him a little too harshly to be an accident as he tries to get comfortable.

Goro’s weight on top of him feels a little awkward, he’s clearly tense and it’s a little like laying with a warm rock across his chest. But then Akira reaches up with his unoccupied hand and hesitates only slightly before he rests it on Goro’s head. He pauses, but when Goro doesn’t move or say anything in response, slowly Akira starts to run his fingers through his hair in a soothing motion. A mirror to what he’d attempted with his feathers when he’d been a bird. Predictably, Goro finally relaxes a bit under the attention, and slowly the tension eases away from him.

It’s not long until his breaths become deep and even with the throes of sleep.

Akira stays awake for a while. He’s not sure how long, maybe an eternity, maybe only an hour or two, but he doesn’t mind it. While asleep, Goro’s form on his becomes more comfortable than painful. In the quiet of the night, he finds himself counting Goro’s quiet breaths, attempting to match the rhythm of his heartbeat to his. It’s the most calm and peaceful Akira has felt in a very long time, and a part of him wishes he could stay like this forever.

But soon exhaustion takes root, and combined with the comfort he’s found, he soon finds himself slipping into a peaceful sleep.

…

…

...

Later, when he wakes up, it’s to the sight of wine red eyes gazing into his. The emotion he finds there is something he’s never seen on Goro before. It’s vulnerable and intense in a way that’s both thrilling and a little bit terrifying. It wraps around his heart and squeezes, and for a moment he can’t breathe. And then Goro is looking away, and by the time he turns back to him, the expression is gone.

But that’s not the last time Akira sees it, nor is that the last night they spend together.

Instead, they continue with this arrangement for several nights proceeding Goro’s inevitable transformation. The moments they spend separated from each other are fleeting, the two of them sitting with their hands connected in Goro’s room, or with Akira’s hand gently on his arm as he feigns leading him through the halls of the castle. Akira channels his healing power into him for as long as he can, up until the moment he falls asleep late at night with Goro’s head heavy on his chest. In the mornings they part with the unspoken promise between them that Akira will return within the hour, after they’ve both washed up and changed. All so that they can do it all over again.

Still, for the first time, Akira doesn’t feel so powerless, even if he’s not really doing anything besides numbing the feeling of his pain. It does get tiring, but Akira would happily keep this up forever if it meant that Goro got to experience at least a little more peace.

Every night they spend together, Goro seems to fit against him a little better, the missing puzzle piece to his own body. And in the early mornings, when there’s nothing but the calm and quiet air around the two of them, Akira will sometimes catch Goro gazing at him with that _look_ again, soft and fond with a certain degree of _longing_. And it’s in those instances that a thought forms, one that warms him to his core more strongly than his magic ever has:

_He might be in love with me too._

***

Even though Akira does all that he can, the peace that he gives to Goro is a temporary thing, nothing more than a mask to hide the truth hidden deep beneath his skin. So, of course, it reasons that eventually, that peace must come to an end.

The first sign that something is wrong occurs when Akira wakes in the middle of the night to find that Goro is no longer in bed with him. The blankets are still rumpled, but the sheets are cold, telling Akira what he hadn’t been there for some time.

The worry creeps in as it always does, but there’s no sign of a struggle and Akira would have awoken if there was, and so Akira quickly climbs out of bed to head in the direction of Goro’s hidden room. It’d been a little over a week since the last time he changed and Goro had been getting worse by the day, requiring more and more magic to help mask the pain. Akira wasn’t sure of the specifics as to how his curse worked, but he did know that the days Goro were at his worst were always the days preceding his transformation.

It’s why he’s not really surprised when he pushes open the solid metal door to find Goro in a crumpled heap on the ground.

Without thinking, he rushes over- fear, concern, and the ever-present need to help outweighing all other emotions. Only as his knees hit the stone floor, Goro looks up at him with eyes glazed over with pain, and he pushes Akira’s outstretched arm away with a snarl.

“Go _home_ Akira,” he growls, “You can’t be here.”

And yet, his threat ends with a whimper, as Goro squeezes his eyes shut and curls even further in on himself. Seeing him like this, nothing in the entire world could remove Akira from his side.

“Goro,” Akira says gently, moving in closer to smooth back some of his hair, finding it drenched in sweat. “You won’t hurt me.”

“You’re a fool,” Goro snaps, even as he leans into Akira’s touch. “I don’t-” His words cut off with a choked gasp as he trembles with a visible effort not to cry out as another wave of pain wracks through him. Akira moves forward, his need to heal and to _help_ calling out from the essence of his very being, but Goro waves him away. “It’s starting,” he gasps.

Goro’s hands hit the floor as he convulses on all fours, choked gasping noises clawing out painfully from his throat. Akira watches in muted horror as his back arches and his nails scrape at the floor, his fingers lengthening and darkening until they snap and break into wing joints, the beginnings of what look like feathers jabbing through his darkened skin. Akira reaches forward despite Goro’s warnings, needing to do _something_ , only to be repelled in the same way he was all that time ago when his magic got too close to the curse. With a gasp, Akira’s back slams hard against the floor, and before he can get his bearings, Goro _screams_ , the sound turning from human into the tortured cry of a bird.

As Akira scrambles upright once more, he’s greeted by the sight of a towering crow in the place where Goro had only seconds ago convulsed in utter agony.

Crow lets out another pained caw, the sound of it hurting Akira’s heart in such a visceral way it nearly brings him to tears. And when Crow turns his beady-eyed gaze on him, Akira sees the animalistic madness there once more. But things are different this time. This time, Akira knows that the madness is a result of pain. He’d been able to heal him before, so with this, he could _help_.

“Goro, look at me,” he says slowly, cautiously rising to his feet. Crow tilts his head at him, a bit of the mindlessness melting away at the sound of his name. He looks confused, as if he’s not sure if he’s supposed to attack or not. It probably shouldn’t be cute, but Akira has accepted that Goro bypasses a lot of things that would probably be considered _sane_ for him to be thinking. “That’s it,” he soothes, very slowly making his way closer. “You know who I am. Let me help you.”

When he’s close enough, he reaches out a hand, all the while knowing that there’s a risk that Crow might very well bite his hand off. And yet, Akira’s not afraid.

Crow gives him no visible sign of danger, instead he just continues to stare at him a bit curiously. With a deep breath, never breaking eye contact with Crow, Akira crosses that final bit of distance and places a hand on his feathered breast. Under his touch, his bird form trembles, but doesn’t attack or seem to react negatively. And so, gathering the power swirling around at his core, Akira calls his magic forth and slowly starts to heal. The heartbeat under his palm, strong and still so familiar, starts to calm a bit after a few moments, and Crow makes a pleased little rumbling sound. Ducking his large head down, Crow pecks almost _playfully_ at his hair and Akira can’t help but laugh as he’s nuzzled by an oversized bird.

“This part of you recognizes me too, doesn’t it?” Akira asks him quietly, pulling back to look at his dark eyes. Goro’s bird form gazes back and Akira strokes a few of his feathers that are in reach. “It’s why you’ve never attacked me. Even when you don’t know yourself, you know who I am.”

Crow makes a low cooing sound, and Akira smiles.

He watches as Crow then tilts his head as if listening for something, and the next moment his head is craned to look up towards the sky through the large open window. Akira is able to pick up on the raw _longing_ in his gaze once again, and his heart aches at the sight.

“You can go,” Akira tells him, petting his feathers gently. “Just be careful.”

Crow looks at him as if he understands, and with another nudge at his head, he’s suddenly lifting himself into the air, nearly pushing Akira back with the force of the air from his large and powerful wings.

And Akira stands back and watches as he flies out into the night.

After he’s gone, Akira doesn’t even consider leaving the room. When Crow returned, he’d return here, and so Akira would wait for however long that would take.

So, while he waits, he wanders around the room a little, looking at Goro’s small collection of books and other miscellaneous notes and items he has scattered around the place. He looks a little more closely at some of the books, noting the wide array of titles on ancient magic and others more specifically centered on curses. Slipped between the pages of one of the books is a list of remedies that range from unfamiliar plants to old incantations, and yet every item on the list is crossed out. Another book nearby catches his attention, its cover looking much more modern and unworn than the others. _The Art of Healing and Other Forms of Light Magic_. Intrigued, Akira takes that one and settles on the floor with it, flipping through it idly as time passes.

It’s nothing incredibly new, most of the information he already knows, being a healer himself. The only thing he finds somewhat interesting is that healing was apparently a form of light magic, and since light magic was the most base of all magics it was almost exclusively transferred through bloodlines. That would make Akira somewhat of an anomaly since neither of his parents had been magic users. Sojiro had never gotten into the history of magic, probably because he never found it practical or important, but Akira can’t help but wonder if he’d been aware of this.

While Akira is contemplating this silently to himself, his attention is caught by the sound of large wings approaching, and he looks up to see Crow returning through the large open window. There’s something clutched in his beak, and Akira can’t make out what it is until he drops it in front of him, finding what appears to be an extraordinarily fancy looking dagger. Its blade is a rich silver that glints under the moonlight, and there’s an intricate design engraved into its hilt.

“What’s this for?” Akira asks Crow who’s looking at him expectantly. “Wait...did you find this for _me_?” Crow puffs out his feathers proudly and Akira can’t stop a wide grin from pulling at his lips. “I have no idea where you got this from, but thank you.”

Seeming pleased by the praise, Crow’s feathers puff out a bit more. He takes another moment to inspect Akira silently, tilting his head as if considering something, before briskly turning and flying back out the window.

“Um, bye?” Akira says with no small amount of humor as he watches him vanish back out into the night.

Akira returns to flipping idly through the book, starting to feel heavy exhaustion eat at him as time goes on. He hadn’t exactly been getting as much sleep as he was used to lately since he’d been attempting to spend as much time as humanly possible helping Goro mask the pain. It was draining in multiple ways and he probably shouldn’t have been expending power consistently without giving it ample time for it to restore. Still, he’d keep going for as long as he could. Akira could deal with a little exhaustion, it was far better than Goro having to live in constant agony.

Yet, he’s aware that now would probably be as good a time as any to try to catch up on some sleep. Even though there’s something stopping him from doing so, as he keeps looking expectantly at the window, worry settling bone deep within him as he waits for Crow to return from wherever he is.

He doesn’t have to wait too long. Akira’s eyes are just starting to slip shut when he abruptly straightens as the sound of beating wings once again pierces the silence of the room.

There’s once again something clutched within Crow’s beak; although, this time it’s nothing resembling a dagger. Instead it looks like a decently heavy bit of material, but Akira’s not positive of what type until Crow lands in front of him and abruptly drops it overtop of his head.

Crow then nudges at him until Akira navigates his head out of the thick woolen blanket. It smells like fresh linen, as if it’d only just been washed, and Akira assumes he must have gotten it from a clothesline somewhere. When he glances up, Crow is once again looking at him expectantly and Akira can’t help but laugh.

“Yes thank you,” he tells him with a grin. “This is also very nice.”

This time however, although he seems pleased by the praise, Crow doesn’t immediately turn and leave like he did last time. Instead he continues to hover, looking as if he’s waiting for something else.

“I uh... _really_ like it?” Akira tries.

Crow makes an annoyed little trill, moving forward and nudging Akira with so much force he ends up pushing him over. As Akira’s left blinking up at him in surprise, Crow appears to be satisfied and it takes a moment for Akira to understand why as realization dawns on him.

“You want me to sleep?”

Crow responds with a nonspecific trilling sound, but leans down to move the blanket so that it’s draped over him a bit more securely. And moments later, when Crow turns and once again flies out from the room, Akira watches him go with a strange sense of warmth in his heart.

“You really are something else, Prince Goro Akechi,” he whispers.

Snuggling into the softness of the blanket, Akira makes himself as comfortable as he can despite the fact that the stone floor certainly isn’t the most comfortable place he’s ever been. Still, it isn’t long before he grows tired of flipping through his book and his deep-seated exhaustion becomes impossible to ignore. Gathering the extra material of the blanket into a makeshift pillow, Akira settles fully into its warmth and allows his eyes to slip shut.

***

Over the course of the night, Akira wakes several times to Crow returning, and he always comes with a gift of some sort.

The first time it’s a pillow, which Akira is grateful for. The next time it’s a bracelet, pretty and extraordinarily shiny, and while Akira has no idea where he found it, he slips it onto his wrist anyway. The third time Crow brings back another heavy blanket, which he once again drapes over Akira while he feigns sleep. The fourth time he brings what looks to be a key for something. Much like the dagger, this too is particularly ornate and beautiful, reflecting the light from the moon above. It’s on this last delivery that Crow finally settles in for the night, moving in close to Akira and tucking him under one of his massive wings.

Once again, Akira finds the weight of his wing to be comforting, as well as the heat emanating from his body, and it lulls him back into a long and peaceful sleep.

***

The next morning, Akira wakes to the sight and feel of Goro once again naked and wrapped around him. Only now, despite the lack of clothes, it’s a familiar sight to be greeted with as he wakes, and the thought alone warms his heart a little. After doing his best to disentangle the second blanket from between their bodies without disturbing Goro, Akira takes the blanket and drapes it overtop of them both.

Thankfully still asleep, probably due to the exhaustion from the events of last night, Goro mumbles something incoherent in his sleep and snuggles further under the blanket, his arm tightening around Akira’s waist in the process. Like so many nights before this, Akira finds his hand navigating to his hair, gently stroking through it.

“You exist beyond all other things for me,” Akira mumbles, voice still heavy with sleep. Still, his words are true, and in the silence of the early morning with Goro safe and curled up at his side, Akira is overcome with a feeling that’s too strong to put into words. “I’d do anything in the world for you,” he whispers, half choked. “All you have to do is ask, I hope you know that.”

Goro, of course, remains asleep, but he does snuggle in just a little bit closer. And with the sight of his peaceful expression and the warmth of his body wrapped around his own, Akira finds himself dozing off once more.

***

When he next wakes, Goro is fully dressed and sitting up on the ground beside him. All the gifts he’d brought Akira are piled next to him, including the bracelet he must have taken off Akira’s wrist, and in his hands is the key which he stares at thoughtfully.

“You’re an idiot,” Goro tells him without preamble, placing the key back down with the knife and bracelet. “I could have killed you.”

“You didn’t,” Akira says, sitting up. “And you won’t.”

Goro finally turns to look at him, expression more open and vulnerable than Akira’s ever seen.“How are you so sure of that?” He asks, voice incredibly small as he eyes Akira as if he can’t quite make sense of him. Which, Akira can’t help but find amusing, since he’s pretty sure he’s been blatantly clear about his weakness for Goro since the moment he showed up at the castle a small lifetime ago.

Slowly, Akira reaches a hand forward and tucks a stray piece of hair behind Goro’s ear. From there he lingers, his hand cupping the side of his face as he smooths his thumb over his cheek, noting Goro’s steep inhale of breath and the widening of his eyes.

He wants to kiss him.

It’s an almost physical need, a living thing curling into his ribcage to swirl around his uselessly fluttering heart. More intense than any magic he’s ever felt, stronger than the call of his own healing power that’s ingrained into the root of his essence. In the fragmented moments of the early morning, Akira is deconstructed and remade until all he knows is that he’s hopelessly in love with Prince Goro Akechi, and if he doesn’t kiss him soon he might actually die.

With that thought at the forefront of his mind, Akira finds himself leaning in, drawn to him like a moth to a brightly burning flame.

Goro’s eyes go impossibly wide in response, and before Akira can even register what’s happening, he’s being forcefully shoved away.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Goro sneers.

Akira’s heart drops as he’s consumed with the sudden fear that he’s just gone and ruined everything.

“I’m sorry, I thought…”

“You thought wrong,” Goro bites back, moving to rise to his feet.

And yet through the fear, Akira feels a flicker of discontent. Because no, no there was no way that he’d been reading things wrong all this time. Goro felt _something_ for him, he was just too damn stubborn to admit it.

Akira reaches out and catches Goro’s wrist before he can stand, ignoring the irritated look he earns for his efforts.

“No, I didn’t,” Akira tells him, matching the intensity of his stare. “You built me a _nest_ , prince. Why is it you’re so determined to keep pushing me away?”

Goro doesn’t answer immediately, instead he breaks his gaze and turns to look at the small pile of gifts he’d given Akira with an unreadable expression.

“I have no control over what I do in my other form,” he says with a frown. “Just because it seems to be... _fond_ of you, doesn’t mean anything.”

But it _did_ mean something. Akira _knew_ it did.

“Goro, look at me,” he coaxes gently, and to his relief, Goro actually listens. His expression still gives nothing away, but when Akira reaches forward to stroke his cheek in the same way he did before, the wall cracks and shatters as Goro trembles under his touch. For a moment, the look in his eyes is tortured for a reason Akira can’t discern, but before he can read too much into it, Goro closes his eyes and he inhales a shaky breath. Lifting a hand, Goro places his hand over Akira’s hand on his cheek, and softly pries it away, dropping them both onto his lap but not letting go.

“I’m dying, Akira,” Goro says, opening his eyes to stare straight into Akira’s, the determination in them burning like a raging fire. Something deep within Akira sinks into the sea and drowns hopelessly at his words, and yet, a part of him is reborn and reignited with a new sense of life and purpose as Goro’s own strength pulls him from the roaring depths. “So, get it through that thick head of yours, that this, _us_ , and whatever fantasies or delusions you have in your head, it can’t happen.”

Akira reminds himself to breathe, allowing the steadiness of Goro’s gaze to ground him. Of course Akira isn’t exactly _surprised_ at the reveal, he knew the curse had been killing Goro from the very first time he’d attempted to touch it with his magic, and yet hearing it confirmed by Goro himself is more painful than he ever could have imagined.

“It’s killing you,” Akira says as fact, not question.

“Slowly,” Goro says with a sardonic smile. “Although as you’ve probably noticed, the time between changes has been getting shorter. I’m afraid I don’t have much time left now.”

The way he says it is apathetic, as if he doesn’t even care that he’s dying. Akira swallows down the lump in his throat and tries his best to keep it together.

“So, it wasn’t...always like this?”

In response, Goro hums thoughtfully and looks away towards a nondescript spot in the room, his expression turning distant.

“In the beginning I had the ability to choose when I transformed, and I had no trouble controlling it,” Goro starts, tone melancholy for a time now long in the past. “While remaining clear-headed in that form had been...difficult, it was not impossible.” He pauses, and when he continues his voice is flat in a way that betrays nothing. “I knew what I was doing when I killed at the king’s instruction. I told myself I was only ending the lives of the worthless bureaucracy who Shido would have found a way to kill regardless of my help.” Goro’s eyes drop to the hilt of the dagger still resting beside his thigh. “And yet, after a while, the names of the people stopped mattering. I had become nothing more than a weapon. Still, that was a price I was willing to pay.”

“ _For what?_ ” Akira chokes out, voice desperate despite his attempt to stay calm. Goro’s head bows in response, but he doesn’t immediately answer. “...Goro?”

“ _Revenge_ , Akira,” Goro says, lifting his eyes to meet his once more. Akira can see the sudden fire burning within the intensity of his gaze and he finds himself inexplicably entranced by the sight of it. “I don’t know what misconceptions you’ve made of me in your head, but I am and always will be a monster. Those legends of Loki you’ve heard, they’re mostly all true,” he continues, his tone completely flat. “The people I killed are numerous, I can’t even remember how many there were.”

Akira remembers the tales of Loki, passed around like a horror story to make sure children returned home to their families before the sun set for the day. Stories of a monstrous bird who stalked its prey with chilling intelligence, sometimes shadowing its target for days before the person who’d suddenly started spouting stories about catching sight of the giant bird went missing soon thereafter- never to be seen again.

He looks at Goro now, the sunlight lightening his hair and highlighting the beauty of his delicate features. His shoulders are set proudly, his gaze boring intensely into Akira’s own, and all Akira can see is the act it all is. A mask to hide the truth lingering in the fingers digging too harshly into his own thighs and the still prominent circles beneath his eyes.

“But you didn’t want to kill them,” Akira finds himself saying, knowing the words to be true. “You were only doing what you were told.”

He’d said it himself, he was a weapon. A weapon created by a corrupt king who pointed him at a target and commanded him to fly.

Goro’s eyes narrow.

“Does it make a difference?” He retorts, voice sharp like the edge of a knife. “The king needed a monster who could kill without it leading back to him, and I _volunteered_ for the job.” As he takes a moment to pause, Akira finds himself trapped under the fierce weight of his gaze, unable to look away. “I did this to _myself_ Akira, do not pity me.”

Akira swallows and finally manages to break eye contact, looking down at the blanket pooled on his lap as he fiddles with a loose string.

“Why’d you do it?” Akira asks, peeking up at him through his lashes to see Goro frown down at his own lap.

A few more moments pass in contemplative silence to the point that Akira wonders if he’s going to answer at all. And when Goro finally does speak, his voice is distant, as if recalling a memory from a time long past.

“I’ve…mentioned my mother to you before,” he begins slowly. “She was one of the maids of the palace before Shido took power. I’m not positive as to how, but at some point he must have discovered the truth about my lineage because the moment he took the throne he banished her from the castle grounds along with his bastard son.” His fingers dig deeper into his own skin, his eyes narrowing dangerously. When he continues, his voice is utterly venomous. “The stress of caring for me while alone and unable to provide for us both was what ultimately killed her. It was only when I came crawling back with the proof of powerful magic in my veins and a promise to help him in any way that I could, that Shido even considered letting me take my rightful place as prince.”

“You wanted your birthright,” Akira guesses, only to earn the full brunt of Goro’s vicious gaze.

“No Akira,” he continues with a tone fashioned out of steel. “What I want is the king dead at my feet while he looks up at me and realizes that not only have I bested him, but also that I’ve taken away everything that he’s ever cared about and worked for in the span of a single moment.”

Looking at him, the fire in his eyes speaking of lethal intent, Akira absolutely believes him. A part of him awakens in response to the sudden heat, and he finds himself invigorated by the sight in place of the much more reasonable feeling of fear.

“Why haven’t you killed him already?” he asks, curious. Goro wasn’t the type to hesitate on something he felt so strongly about, and if he was determined to see this through, then what was it he was waiting for?

“I...wanted him to break the curse,” is Goro’s answer, spoken quietly in the silence of the room. “I thought he’d grow to trust me enough for that. Instead, the moment I admitted to him that I could no longer control the power he gave to me, he brought me _you_.”

He finishes the admission with a pointed look towards Akira, and he _understands_. The moment Akira walked into the palace that fateful day, he’d been a walking representation of a death sentence. No wonder Goro had looked at him the way he had.

“...I’m sorry,” Akira says just as quietly, but Goro shakes his head.

“There’s no need to apologize, it really is probably for the best,” Goro tells him, far too flippantly. “I’ve done heinous things, and I realize I never deserved a happy ending.” He pauses, his expression turning into something softer. “But for what it’s worth, I am...glad to have met you, Akira.”

In response, Akira’s heart stutters pathetically. He finds himself abundantly melancholy for a life by Goro’s side that he’s been denied, but he silences the feeling almost as quickly as it comes. For as much as Goro’s words sound like goodbye, Akira refuses to see things that way. He wasn’t giving up on him, not now, not ever.

“This isn’t goodbye,” Akira tells him in a tone as resolute as the steady beating of his own heart. “I’m with you until the end, my prince.”

For a moment pure unbridled shock crosses Goro’s features, only for it to melt into something much harsher, disbelief fueling the heat behind his glare.

“Are you _insane_?” He sneers, but Akira isn’t dissuaded. Instead Akira finds himself leaning closer in response, a smirk tugging at his lips.

“Maybe,” he says because, for all he knew he might be. But he no longer cared. “Does that bother you?”

Another moment passes in silence, and then Goro starts to _laugh_. The air between them ringing with his crazed almost _manic_ laughter.

“What is _wrong_ with you?” He asks once he seems to get a hold of himself. His eyes are suddenly cold, and Akira can’t help but flinch at the sight. “I don’t know if you have some deranged sense of heroism or if you’re just that much of an idiot, but you can take your pity and waste it on someone else. I’m not a charity case.”

“I never said you were,” Akira says quickly, desperate to get Goro to understand what he’s trying to say. “Goro I’m-”

“ _Don’t_.”

He freezes at fire in Goro’s expression, something almost frantic flickering in his gaze, telling Akira that he’s well aware of what he’s trying to tell him. And it’s with that, Akira becomes intrinsically aware that he’s walking a very fragile line. It’s as if he’s standing at a precipice before a fall. Should he jump, he could very possibly drown and never see the light again from the darkness of the roaring sea. But the waves below might also be calm and pleasant, a world much better than the one he’d called home before.

Akira looks Goro in the eye and swallows.

“I’m in love with you.”

The moment the words leave his mouth, Goro releases a furious sound from deep within his throat and he lunges. Tackling Akira to the hard stone ground, Goro shakes him by the cloth of his shirt, causing his shoulders to knock painfully into the floor.

“Goddammit Akira,” he snarls. “Of all the _stupid, inane, moronic_ feelings you could possibly have for _me_ of all people. Save it for someone who fucking cares.”

The last of his words comes out choked, and as his frenzied shaking slows, Akira notices the glistening of his cheeks and realizes he’s crying.

“I don’t want anyone else,” Akira tells him with all the conviction of his heart. “I want you.”

In response, Goro makes a sound like a wounded animal, and suddenly Akira’s being yanked forward as Goro’s lips come crashing down onto his own.

The kiss is _fire_ and it is _passion_ , much like Goro himself. The warm softness of his lips paired with the almost painful force in which he kisses, leaves Akira pliant beneath him, surrendering himself and taking whatever Goro is willing to give. It’s not long before Goro pulls back, remaining only a hair's breadth away, his eyes scanning over Akira’s face somewhat searchingly as their heavy breathing mingles in the air between their parted lips. Then Goro’s leaning back in, this time slipping his tongue between Akira’s lips, and it’s then that Akira finally loses all capability for thought.

Goro’s scent surrounds him, something sweet and unrecognizable, but entirely _Goro_. His hands wander restlessly to whatever part of Goro he can reach, addicted to the warmth of him he can feel even through his clothes. Akira loses himself in the taste and feel of him, gasping when Goro slips a knee between his thighs and Akira juts up his hips mindlessly. His back arches as Goro slips a hand beneath his shirt, and as his shoulders dig into the stone beneath his back, a moment of clarity breaks through to tell him that there were probably better places they could be doing this.

“Maybe we should find a bed?” Akira gasps, pulling back with the last bit of his self-restraint.

When he looks at him, Goro’s eyes are unfocused and glazed over in a way that causes Akira to tremble and want nothing more than to drag him back in, let the floor be damned. Yet before he can act on that, clarity breaks through and Goro nods his head, rising to his feet and pulling Akira up after him. Akira almost immediately feels cold without Goro’s body heat pressing him into the floor, but before he can dwell too much on that, Goro’s pulling him out of the room by the hand.

Goro’s pace is brisk as he pushes through the heavy steel door as if it was nothing, and Akira has to try his best to keep up unless he wants his arm removed from its socket.

“In a hurry?” Akira asks in amusement, Goro looking back at him with an arched brow in response.

“And you’re not?” He asks, voice low in a way that sends pleasant tingles down Akira’s spine. “Would you rather we wait?”

“Uh no, this is fine.”

Goro says nothing in response, but as he turns his head Akira catches the hint of a smirk playing at his lips.

In all honesty, Akira thinks he might die if they were to wait any longer. He wants to become intimately familiar with every single part of Goro more than he’s ever wanted anything. It’s written in the lines of his skin, and something deep within him at the core of his being reaches out for him, wanting to be connected to him in every possible way until they’re not even sure where one of them ends and the other begins.

It’s with this thought that they finally reach the bed. Akira is the first to sit onto its plush surface, shifting back, and suddenly finding himself a bit nervous of the reality of what they’re about to do sinks in. He still wants this, he knows that more than anything, but he can’t help but wonder if he’ll end up being a disappointment and he’ll somehow ruin everything. It’s a sobering thought, and Goro seems to catch wind of his expression, because the next thing Akira knows he’s straddling his lap and cupping his face in his hands.

“Are you sure about this?” Goro asks, his expression deadly serious.

Trying to regain control of his nerves, Akira nods in his hold. “Yeah, sorry,” he says a bit sheepishly. “I’ve just never done this before.”

Goro takes another moment to search his face, before he finally nods and leans in, stopping inches away from Akira’s lips.

“Stop me if it gets to be too much,” Goro tells him, the implication of his words causing Akira to shiver as he finally kisses him, his movements increasing in fervor until Akira once again finds his head consumed by his presence.

Goro is like a storm. His lips press against him a bit harder than strictly necessary, desperation bleeding into every rushed movement. His kisses are as numerous as they are fleeting, as if he’s rushing forward towards a precipice of his own, determined to take the plunge for himself before the terror of the sea catches up with him.

Goro kisses as if he’s running out of time.

Akira slides a palm against his cheek and tangles the other one in Goro’s hair, and when the next kiss comes he leans farther into it, sliding a tongue against the crease of his lips and earning a shudder in response. He slows down his tumultuous rhythm, taking things at a more languid pace, and Goro follows his lead, adjusting himself over Akira’s lap and fisting both hands into the material of his shirt.

Goro breaks away from his lips and peppers kisses down the skin of his throat. Akira chokes on a gasp, and pulls him closer, tilting his head back to give him more room. Goro makes a low sound in the back of his throat that might be one of the hottest things that Akira has ever heard, and yet, when Goro’s hands fist tighter into the material of his shirt, Akira feels that he’s shaking.

“Are you okay?” Akira asks, as he forces himself to nudge Goro back from the skin of his neck. Looking down to meet his eyes, Akira’s hands travel down the length of Goro’s trembling arms in a soothing motion.

“I’m fine, Akira,” Goro says, looking annoyed as he dives back in to attack Akira’s throat with his mouth, making a frustrated sound when Akira pulls him away again. “ _What?_ ”

“As much as I want to do this,” Akira begins, hating himself for stopping this and yet unable to ignore the worry swirling around in his gut, “you had a long night last night and-”

“ _Please_ Akira,” Goro interrupts, and the raw desperation in his tone cuts Akira off short. “I don’t want to think about that. I want one night to just... _stop thinking_.”

Bringing a hand up to cup his cheek, Akira rises forward and presses a chaste kiss to the edge of his lips.

“Okay,” he tells him gently, understanding innately what Goro needs right now.

With a breath that comes out shaky, Goro leans back in, and this time his kiss is softer. Akira finds himself melting under his gentle attention, as the embers are stoked and the heat in his chest ebbs and flows like the roaring tide. With every brush of Goro’s lips his nerves tingle and alight, and with every curious touch of Goro’s hands, Akira feels as if he’s being born anew.

The next time Goro pulls back, his lips are red, his hair is messy, and Akira has never been one for religion but he thinks that he might be okay with worshipping Goro Akechi until the day that he dies. Akira flexes his fingers against Goro’s small waist, leans in to bury his face in the crook of his neck, breathing in the scent of him. When he kisses the spot between his neck and shoulder, Goro shudders in his hold, his hands coming up to clutch at Akira’s hair, urging him on with a faint groan.

Goro grinds down on his lap and Akira gasps into the skin of his neck, his hips jutting up involuntarily to meet Goro’s own. In response Goro makes a choked sound, half between a whimper and a moan, and all of Akira’s nerves alight at the sound. And the next moment, Akira’s being pushed down onto the bed, Goro straddling his waist and peering down at him as if he wants to devour him. It is, single-handedly, the most turned on Akira has been in his entire life.

“I do hope you realize I don’t share,” Goro purrs, running a hand leisurely down Akira’s heaving chest. “I wonder...do you even realize what you’re getting into?”

Akira swallows.

“I can handle anything,” he breathes, his voice heavy even to his own ears.

“Oh, I don’t doubt it,” Goro says with a devious smirk. Then his hand pats Akira’s chest twice before he sits back a little, his next words ringing with command. “Take your shirt off.”

“You’re bossy today,” Akira tells him, despite not minding it in the least.

Goro arches a brow at him.

“Do you have a problem with that?”

And the answer to that, of course, is a solid _no_.

So, Akira sits up to remove his shirt, Goro moving from his lap to give him more room. His eyes however, remain glued to Akira, and he can feel the weight of them scorching to the depths of his soul as he slips the material over his head. While he’s at it he removes the rest of his clothes too, watching from the corner of his eye as Goro slowly starts to do the same. Once he’s completely naked he lies back down, and despite never being one to get self-conscious, he suddenly finds himself fidgeting a little under the weight of Goro’s gaze once he moves back over to straddle him.

He reaches up to tug nervously at his own fringe, and as he does so, Goro’s expression softens. Leaning down to kiss Akira gently on the lips, Goro lingers for several heartbeats, before he finally pulls back.

“Relax, I want you to enjoy yourself,” Goro murmurs against his lips, and Akira tugs him back in to kiss him again. Goro immediately complies, his tongue slipping through Akira’s parted lips, and Akira once again gets lost in the taste and feel of him.

Slowly hands start to wander, Akira tracing every bit of skin he can reach with his fingertips, wanting to memorize every inch of his body. He has the sudden desire to push Goro down on the bed and map every plane of skin with his tongue, until there isn’t an inch of him that remains unexplored. Wants to know him intricately, deeply, until every single part of Goro Akechi is ingrained into his memory so he’ll never forget him.

Suddenly overcome with an emotion too strong for him to name, Akira’s hand navigates to gently cup Goro’s jaw, and he parts their lips so he can instead rest their foreheads against each other.

“I love you,” Akira whispers, watching as something intense and powerful and _beautiful_ fills Goro’s eyes. And in the next moment, Goro’s lips are wild and fervent against his own, as if he’s trying to devour him.

Things speed up from there. The fire rages and burns to a constantly increasing tempo found in the quickened beat of their hearts and their gasping breaths. When they come together as one, Akira closes his eyes and reaches out with his magic, letting it flow freely between them both as they’re finally connected in every possible way.

“You’re _mine_ ,” Goro whispers brokenly at one point, biting down at the junction between Akira’s neck and shoulder. “All mine. No one else gets to see you like this.”

“No one ever will,” Akira gasps. Tangling his fingers in his hair and holding him in place. “I’m yours.”

Neither of them last long after that. The heat comes to an all-consuming crescendo, and they come together with Goro’s teeth biting into his shoulder and Akira’s hands clutching desperately at his back.

Goro drops onto his chest afterwards, his arms no longer able to support him. His weight is pleasant, and Akira tightens his hold on him, entranced by the tempo of their hearts finally beating in tandem.

They stay like that for a long time, the both of them, trembling.

***

The next morning when Akira wakes, Goro is already sitting up in bed.

It’s clearly late, the sunlight filtering into the room suggesting that it was closer to the afternoon. Still, if Goro’s been awake long it doesn’t look as if he’s moved from the bed. His hair is still in disarray from last night, and it leaves him looking endearingly disheveled as he gazes thoughtfully in the direction of the balcony window, his palm resting beneath his chin.

 _He’s beautiful_ , Akira thinks and smiles to himself, feeling warm, content, and happy.

“Morning,” Akira says, instantly earning Goro’s attention. Turning away from the window, Goro meets his eyes and his expression immediately softens.

“Good morning,” he says, voice quiet in the silence of the room. “How are you feeling?”

“A little sore,” Akira admits, stretching a little before settling back in under the blanket, Goro tracking his movements with the full intensity of his gaze. “But it’s nothing I can’t handle,” he finishes with a shrug.

“I’m sure,” Goro says, his lips tugging into a small amused smile. And yet, in the next moment it’s gone, replaced with something almost somber as Goro drops his gaze to the blanket pooled around his hips. Open concern immediately takes hold, and Akira moves his hand under the blanket to rest it over his knee.

“Hey, are you okay?”

At his question, Goro hesitates, looking visibly conflicted as to whether or not he should answer. His gaze lifts to look into Akira’s eyes imploringly, and Akira meets his searching look with all the patience in the world. While he wants Goro to be open and honest with him, ultimately the decision would always be up to him. Akira knew better than to push.

Finally, Goro sighs and deflates a little, as if in defeat.

“It’s...starting already,” Goro tells him, causing the worry in Akira’s gut to swirl into a tumultuous crescendo.

“Wait, what?” Akira says as he finally sits up. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know what he was referring to, there was only one possible thing it could be after all. The problem was that what he was suggesting should have been impossible, because Akira had been watching Goro for weeks and he always seemed completely fine for several _days_ after the change.

“The pain’s bearable,” Goro elaborates, tone flat and quiet, “clearly in the beginning stages, but it _is_ settling in already.”

“But you just changed last night.”

“I know,” Goro says. “Normally it takes at least a few days.”

With that, Goro releases a very tired sounding sigh and moves closer to Akira, positioning himself so his head is resting on Akira’s shoulder. Akira wraps an arm around him, adjusting them both so Goro’s more comfortable, moving so that Goro’s sitting between his legs with his back resting against his chest. Goro complies without complaint, shifting until his head is nuzzling into the junction of Akira’s neck and shoulder, his breaths tickling his skin. A content calm settles over them for several moments, before Goro finally breaks it.

“I’m going to kill him, Akira,” he says quietly and Akira’s arms tighten around him.

“What?”

“I’m running out of time, and I refuse to let him live after all he’s done,” he continues with the same low tone, only this time Akira hears the quiet fire burning below the surface. The flames that told him Goro would burn down anything in his path until he either set the king ablaze or died trying. “He _will_ die by my own hands while I still have the ability and strength to do so.”

“But your curse-”

“Is killing me,” Goro interrupts sharply, pressing his face almost painfully into Akira and successfully killing the words on Akira’s tongue. “And the _king_ isn’t about to change that. He never intended to.”

He’s right of course, Akira can’t deny it. The king never had any intention of healing, and it’s not as if they could change his mind through any sort of civil discussion, Akira knows it’s too stupid of a thing to even suggest. And yet...there was perhaps one other option that didn’t include regicide.

“What if we threaten it out of him?” Akira suggests, if only because it’d be the safer of the two options for Goro. Not much use breaking the curse if they were only going to send Goro to the gallows for killing the king anyway.

Goro turns in his arms to look at him and smiles, dangerous and predatory.

“I always knew you had teeth.” He pauses then, looking as if he’s considering it. “...If we can get Shido alone...the two of us might stand a chance,” he says after a moment. Gaze fiercely meeting Akira’s he adds, “Can you fight?”

And Akira is aware that it’s an important thing to consider, considering that if things turned out badly, they’d need to fight their way out and somehow win.

His grip tightening on Goro again, Akira says, “You know I can.”

Despite his words, Goro still doesn’t seem appeased.

“If we do have to fight him, it won’t be just any old sparring match,” he says intently. “He’s a powerful magic user, and you’re-”

“A healer, yes I’m aware,” Akira interrupts, a little put-out that Goro thought he couldn’t protect himself. “I can hold my own, don’t worry about me.”

Yet, Goro only frowns, seeming to hesitate once more as he contemplates something.

“That’s...not all, I’m afraid,” Goro says after several moments pass in silence. “The curse was born of Shido’s own magic, which means he might still have some control over it. I can’t say for sure, but if it comes down to it and I lose control of myself...” he pauses then, making sure to look Akira dead in the eye as he says his next part. “Put me out of my misery. I refuse to be a weapon for him any longer.”

Something deep within Akira snaps and breaks at his request. He’s intrinsically aware of what he should say, knows that Goro values his freedom above all else and that living as a puppet without any say in it would be a fate worse than death for him. And yet, he finds the words needed to agree escaping him, Akira’s mouth opening and then closing again on a soundless answer.

The truth was, Akira couldn’t even fathom killing him, even if it was what he knew he had to do.

“You built me a nest, prince,” he chokes out instead. “You’re not going to kill me.”

“Akira, I need you to promise,” Goro says because he could be merciless when he wanted to be, and so of course he wasn’t going to let Akira off that easy.

Akira takes a deep breath, fingers tapping a fervent beat against the skin of Goro’s side.

“Yeah,” he finally promises quietly.

Goro leans in and kisses him lightly, and Akira’s hold on him tightens as if he might fade away.

In response, Goro ducks his head to mouth at Akira’s jaw, and despite everything, Akira finds himself encouraging him by tangling a hand in his hair as pleasant tingles travel down to the base of his spine.

“Now enough of that,” Goro purrs, shoving Akira back down onto the bed, straddling his waist once again. “I’m finding myself in the mood for round two.”

Of course, Akira _knows_ that he can’t seriously be in the mood for sex after all of that. But he also understands a distraction when one is offered, and Akira knows that they could both use an excuse to stop thinking right about now.

And so, they fall into each other once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :3

**Author's Note:**

> This is part one of my submission for the Goro Big Bang! 
> 
> Please check out the amazing art by my wonderful Big Bang partner Eri! [You can find it here](https://twitter.com/teasnspices/status/1354126204396318720?s=20)
> 
> And a big thank you to my beta [rebelaar](https://twitter.com/rebelaar_writer) who was such a big help. And to my friend [Julia](https://twitter.com/x_tobefree_x) who beta'd this for me again after I rewrote a lot of it last minute!! I couldn't have done this without them.
> 
> Also thank you to the very lovely [Kiva](https://twitter.com/kivaember) for helping me come up with the title of this fic. Both the title and the lyrics used are from the song Crow by Deerhoof. 
> 
> All comments/kudos are appreciated!!  
> You can find me on Twitter: @pana_pancake


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